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City closed the gap to Premier League leader Arsenal to four points as it marked Guardiola's 1,000th game in management with its best performance of the campaign.

After seeing an early penalty saved by Giorgi Mamardashvili, Erling Haaland was joined on the scoresheet by Nico Gonzalez and Jeremy Doku in a dominant win at the Etihad Stadium.

City is unbeaten in its last eight Premier League home games against reigning Premier League champions, winning seven of those matches and drawing the other.

Only two sides have ever enjoyed longer such runs in the competition's history – Liverpool's 16-game streak from 2008 to the present, and Chelsea's 13 matches from 2002 to 2020.

City's 22 points from 11 matches are actually one fewer than they had accumulated at the same stage of last season, but a terrible run of form in the winter knocked them out of the title race and limited its ambitions to Champions League qualification.

Guardiola believes City was fortunate to finish as high as third in 2024-2025, but he says there is a different feeling around the squad this term.

"The team has a good vibe," Guardiola said. "We had energy. We lost energy last season. I don't know why.

"We were not like this team has been for many years. We lost players but we tried to push each other and we were not able to do it.

"Even then, we finished third. Normally, in that situation in the Premier League, you finish 10th.

"Since the Club World Cup in the United States, I felt something different than what happened last season in general."

Despite the convincing manner of City's win, Guardiola said City has achieved nothing yet.

"In October and November, you don't win the Premier League. The team that wins is the one that grows," he said. "You can be top but you have to get better and better. We talk about that a lot. We have the feeling we are going that way. We are back in many ways.

"I have the feeling we're back and we can play in different ways now. That's good for us, but not for the opponents. They don't know what we're going to do."

Guardiola was also pleased to see his 1,000th game as a manager come against Liverpool, which repeatedly battled City for the title under the management of Jurgen Klopp.

"It has been nice to play against them – Virgil [van Dijk], [Andy] Robertson, [Mohamed] Salah – we have done 1,000 battles," Guardiola said.

"I think Pep Lijnders, my assistant, represents a bit of Jurgen in a small way. It has been a special night with my kids here, so it was good."