Pep Guardiola hopes Manchester City have learnt lessons from Fulham scare

Pep Guardiola insists Manchester City have learnt from their midweek scare at Fulham and the game has now been forgotten.

City nervously held on for a 5-4 victory in a remarkable Premier League clash at Craven Cottage on Tuesday having led 5-1 with almost an hour gone.

Coming after they fought off a Leeds fightback to win 3-2 in their previous game, it raised more questions about whether City are resilient enough to sustain a challenge to leaders Arsenal.

City manager Guardiola said: “It’s forgotten. Good learnings, hopefully, but it’s forgotten.

“In the Premier League, in modern football, at all the clubs, you have to learn from what happens in the good things and bad things and think of the next one.

“Of course I’m concerned. We try to understand what happened, to not concede the goals.

“With the three goals (scored) against Leeds, and the five goals against Fulham you can see the two versions, right? So, always we have done many good things.

“But how many shots on target had Leeds? Three? Scored two. It’s not bad.

“How many shots on target Fulham? Five, six? So, the average of shots conceded we can see is high. We have to improve.”

City host Sunderland on Saturday and Guardiola is expecting another difficult encounter against a team who have impressed in their first season back in the top flight.

The Black Cats are sixth in the table – just five points behind City – and claimed a creditable 1-1 draw at champions Liverpool on Wednesday.

Guardiola said: “All I can say is, in my humble opinion, they deserve to be where they are.

“When you play after you’re promoted three, four, five games, OK, momentum – but after 14 fixtures in this Premier League, with these opponents, they deserve it.

“There are four, five or six concepts they do and they do all of them well. Otherwise, they would not be who they are. In this league, impossible.

“So, it’s good challenge for us.”

City are still without midfielder Rodri, who remains on the sidelines with a hamstring injury.

The Spain international, who won the Ballon d’Or last year, has played just one minute of football in City’s last 11 games. He is also doubtful for next week’s Champions League trip to Real Madrid.

Guardiola has downplayed concerns about the performances of left-back Rayan Ait-Nouri, who is yet to establish himself following his summer move from Wolves.

He said: “Rayan played in the Club World Cup really good. He played in pre-season, he played the first game against Wolves and the second game against the Spurs.

“After that he was injured and Nico O’Reilly performed really well. That’s the only reason. No more than that.”