Pep Guardiola saw his Manchester City grind out a nervous 2-0 win at relegation threatened Leicester City on Sunday.
Boy was he relieved, as Guardiola celebrated victory following his 500th game in charge of Man City.
Goals from Savinho and Erling Haaland secured City just their second win in their last 14 games in all competitions.
Pep Guardiola reaction after Manchester City win at Leicester
“I would say we need it,” Guardiola told Sky Sports in the UK when asked how much relief that win gave them. “All of us. It was not the ideal performance but in the moment it was almost impossible to take it. Hopefully the victories will put our mood in a better position. It is important to win here, always we struggled here.
“It was tight, the second half, the first half an hour they were much, much better. We don’t have enough energy to sustain 90 minutes at our game. Hopefully, I don’t know, hopefully a good result and a new year will help us to bounce back a little bit from our bad moment, especially the results, and the players can come back a little bit.”
Guardiola was asked about the result being more important than the performance right now as they look to climb the table.
“To get the result you have to do something, yeah?” Guardiola smiled. “As much as you want the results if you don’t do anything the results don’t come. To do it in the position that we have, the situation, of course results know is the most important thing. To clear our mind, to get points we have another game at home now. Many good things happened today but I didn’t expect otherwise, to make this moment the best in our last nine years together.”
Asked if the main emotion was relief, Guardiola couldn’t agree more.
“It is not enjoyable it is just relief now,” Guardiola laughed. “That is the real word to express the feeling that we have, all of us. It looks like we’ve done incredible things for many years and now we were not able to win games. Sometimes it is just the relief but we have to improve. It is not the best.”
Guardiola was also asked about adding new players in January.
“I don’t know. Kevin [de Bruyne] is back but we need more in the middle and the back four, we have struggled with full-backs and central defenders,” Guardiola said. “In some positions we need help. The squad is good, the problem is we don’t have the squad and that makes everything difficult. When we’re all together we’re the team we were but with important players out for weeks and months it’s so difficult. I thought central defenders would be fit all season but we have struggled - holding midfield and central defenders we need help. The market is the market it’s not easy, it’s expensive so we will see what the club can do.”
