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Cape Town - Pep Guardiola praised an outstanding Manchester City performance following their 3-2 defeat of West Brom on Saturday.
Leroy Sane kicked off proceedings at the Hawthorns on 10 minutes and while Jay Rodriguez hit back just three minutes later, City responded through Fernandinho on 15 minutes and Raheem Sterling with 64 minutes having been played.
The visitors were guilty of wasting a number of good goal-scoring opportunities before Matt Phillips made the scoreline seem more respectable with his 92nd minute consolation.
City ended the afternoon five points clear of Manchester United on 28 points from 10 games.
After the game, a happy Guardiola told reporters: "We didn’t panic when it was 1-1 and we didn’t panic when it went to 3-2 in the last minute so we made a good performance and I’m happy.
"We did really well in a lot of areas today and we deserved to win.
"West Brom created just three chances and scored two goals whereas we created so many but didn’t take them - but that’s football, it’s OK and so big congratulations to my team.
"It is a difficult place to come and win and West Brom are a complicated side to play against so I am really happy, but we are still only just five points ahead so nothing has changed."
Up next for City is a Champions League clash with Napoli on Wednesday, with Guardiola stressing the importance of coming away from the game with a positive result.
He concluded: "We need one more win to qualify but we are going to the team that are leading Serie A and everybody knows the type of football they play in their own stadium so it’s going to be very difficult, but it’s a great opportunity for us to book our place and we’re going to try our best to do it."
City next face Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in an English Premiership clash on Sunday.
kick off is at 16:15.
