Wednesday 22 November 2017 07:43, UK
Pep Guardiola admitted his Manchester City side were below their best as they edged out Feyenoord 1-0 to top their Champions League group.
City needed an 88th-minute winner from Raheem Sterling at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night to extend their club-record winning run to 17 matches.
Having already secured a place in the last 16, Guardiola chose to focus on the result.
"A win is better than not. We are going to analyse the performance - the first half we could do better - but sometimes it is difficult having won lots of games and being already qualified. We didn't have the right tension to play but that is normal," he said.
"We are still winning and we made a fantastic goal, from Raheem after an excellent pass from [Ilkay] Gundogan."
"You see he scores a lot of goals, that is good for him. He is scoring important goals and that is so important for a winger or a striker. But he is young and can still improve."
Napoli's convincing victory over Shakhtar Donetsk ensured Man City would go through as winners of the group. Their final group game against the Ukrainian side now has nothing riding on it for Man City.
"We have one game left. We are going to see what will happen. It is important now to have 15 points. We will see. The draw for last 16 doesn't matter. It always will be complicated," he added.
Guardiola resisted calls to hand a start to highly-rated youngsters Phil Foden and Brahim Diaz. Foden, the star of England's recent U17 World Cup success, appeared as a 75th-minute substitute while Diaz came on in injury time.
"I say big congratulations to the academy. All the club has to be so proud, two young players, 17-18 years old, making their first appearance in the Champions League," he said. "They are young talents. Our squad is not too big. We will see what happens in the next few games.
"Hopefully they can stay for a long time and help us. For the academy and the way they work with them. They deserve the credit - the managers, people, the team-mates. They are responsible for them making their first appearance in this competition."
Feyenoord, with no points, now cannot climb off the bottom of the group but manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst was pleased with the performance.
He said: "To concede a goal in the 88th minute was a bit harsh but you could also see the quality of the City squad.
"I think we deserved more today - we played a good game and could have scored before the 1-0 but overall I am very proud of the way we performed and represented our club today."
