Pep Guardiola felt Rayan Cherki outdid Lionel Messi but tempered his praise of the Frenchman after Manchester City’s comfortable victory over Sunderland.
Cherki produced one of his best performances since joining City in the summer to help them to a 3-0 victory on Saturday that cut Arsenal’s Premier League lead to two points.
Cherki capped an influential display with a sublime rabona cross for Phil Foden to head home City’s third, but Guardiola was impressed more by the 22-year-old’s all-round effort than isolated moments of magic.
The City manager said: “Rayan is an exceptional player. He is so young, he has a huge personality. He is not scared and has self-confidence.
“In the final third he had something special but what I admire the most about Rayan is not the skills.
“I never saw Messi play a cross like he has done. Messi is the best player to play the game but I never saw these kind of crosses.
“Crosses are fine, right or left foot it doesn’t matter. If it is effective it is fine.
“But I like simplicity. Messi never made a mistake with the simple things. The simple things he does perfectly, then he dribbles past four or five players.
“I want players to do the simple things well and, after that, if you have special talent he can do whatever he wants. But if it doesn’t work it will be a problem, he will be in trouble.
“In his career I have the feeling he has done whatever he wants. Here, he has to do what he has to do for the team. When he is able to do it, he will play a lot of minutes for many years at this club.”
City took control of the game with a first-half double from centre-backs Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol before Cherki and Foden combined to kill off any prospect of a Sunderland fightback.
The result puts them firmly on Arsenal’s tail in the title race but Guardiola is not thinking about that yet.
He said: “Yes it is better to be closer than further to the top of the league but, from my experience of winning the Premier League and titles, it is about the consistency.
“Consistency comes from the way you play, not from the results or being two points in front or four in front.
“Today has been one of the best performances of the year during 95 minutes.”
Sunderland had begun the game in fifth but this was a frustrating afternoon compounded by the stoppage-time sending-off of Luke O’Nien.
Manager Regis Le Bris said: “It’s difficult to repeat performances at a high level. Three days ago we were at Liverpool and I think we showed a really strong version of Sunderland.
“Today maybe we lacked intensity. We defended well, we tried to build up the pressure but it wasn’t enough to be competitive.”
