How Pep Lijnders helped Man City snatch victory against Leeds United

Manchester City scored an injury-time winner to beat Leeds at the Etihad and after hailed the influence of his new assistant.

Pep Guardiola praised the impact of his new assistant Pep Lijnders after seeing Manchester City snatch a dramatic late winner against Leeds in the Premier League. The Blues threw away a commanding first-half position, having gone into the break 2-0 up thanks to goals from Phil Foden and Josko Gvardiol.

A second-half collapse allowed the visitors to level through Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Lucas Nmecha. But Foden's injury-time winner allowed City to close the gap to Arsenal ahead of their meeting with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. It also put a gloss on a disappointing week and prevented a third straight game without a win.

Guardiola felt it was the type of game that City don't normally win and questioned their ability to score late winning goals, especially after being pegged back, before suggesting Lijnders had brought something different in the approach from his time at Anfield.

"A lot of teams are winning in the last minutes," said Guardiola. "I've been in Champions League many many, years for in the last minutes we concede goals. I'm happy that maybe we can learn as well to win this type of game, to bring the ball quicker to the box, put more players.

"I'm so happy for Omar [Marmoush] because after one minute he had the chance to score and feel and [Rayan] Cherki and the other ones and we need this type of games and there in that moment there are no tactics, they are moments, not strategies. They are not you have to do these and move in that way it's just put the ball there avoid the transitions and bring the ball in the box in the chaos and you will score.

"Pep Lijnders is now with me, have been in Liverpool for many years and how many times they were able to win these type of games, and the only chance is put the ball there and we did it good."

Although Guardiola said he felt City had played better against Liverpool and Newcastle, he was pleased with the spirit on show against Leeds and said it was important his team learned how to win games with different approaches.

"We have to learn to win different ways of football games in the Premier League," he said. "Always a game plan for Daniel, a game plan for me is exceptional. So a game plan always is 10 out of 10, Daniel as well. But after that, many things that you cannot control. And we are not, I would say, a team to win these type of games a lot.

"But we needed it, you know, we had 89 minutes and we knew we had 10 minutes extra time and in that moment I said, okay, let's go, see if we have time. But before the goal, we had a chance, two or three chances. And at the end we were able to close and bring points after two defeats was massively important for our mood and now it happened."