Guardiola singles out England pair from Man City's win over Burnley

The Sky Blues recorded a comfortable victory in Saturday’s league outing, but it wasn’t the goalscorers who earned the manager’s plaudits post-match.

Raheem Sterling made his return to the Manchester City starting XI to face Burnley after expressing discontentment over his lack of enough game time earlier this week.

Sterling appears to be suffering a slump in form this season, having scored just once in 11 appearances across all competitions so far in 2021-22.

And while the 26-year-old attacker wasn’t able to make much of an impact in what was only his third league start of the season, his performance proved enough to earn him praise from manager Pep Guardiola.

The Man City manager also went on to praise John Stones, who put in a solid display at the back to ensure his side record a clean sheet in Saturday’s fixture at the Etihad.

Guardiola told BBC post-match: “Both played really well – it was a difficult game, tried to tell them to forget about previous 5-0 because Burnley always fight and never give up and are able to go to any stadium and create a problem and know what they have to do so I give a lot of credit to them today.”

The Spaniard added on the England duo: “I decided to play Raheem six days ago. I am always on their side; I demand the best performance possible, but I am always there for them.”