Pep Guardiola has joked that Manchester City’s FA Cup fourth round win at Leyton Orient saved his job.
City were facing one of the great shocks in the competition’s history as League One side Orient led at the break through a Stefan Ortega own goal as Jamie Donley’s stunning 45-yard strike hit the crossbar and then the City goalkeeper’s back.
Second half goals from Abdukodir Khusanov and Kevin De Bruyne secured a 2-1 victory to rescue City and Guardiola, who faced chants about his future from the gleeful Orient fans inside the Gaughan Group Stadium.
Asked how much he enjoyed the atmosphere, the City boss said: “When they say ‘you are going to get sacked in the morning,’ not much.
“But it is a routine in all the stadiums right now, Still, with this result I think my chairman is not going to sack me tomorrow.
“It was really good. I don’t know if in League One, in every single game the vibe is like this but it’s really good. You come to enjoy the football, the locker room is so tight. The players can talk even more than in a normal locker room. But I said many times to the players: ‘we came from here.’
“We didn’t warm up at 16, 17, 18 years old and go to Wembley. We were born in these locker rooms. Especially when you play in the lower divisions, I like the way the team behaves because how many surprises have there been in the FA Cup, in the long history of this competition?”
City face Real Madrid in Tuesday’s Champions League knockout phase play-off first leg and avoided what would have been another huge blow to Guardiola after falling 15 points off the pace in the Premier League.
“Now of course our position is a little bit unstable emotionally, we have a lot of injuries and that’s why going through with this result makes me so proud and so happy,” Guardiola added.
City handed debuts to two of their January signings in Nicolas Gonzalez and Vitor Reis. Gonzalez was forced off after 22 minutes with an injury, of which Guardiola admitted afterwards he was unsure of the severity, while Reis was withdrawn for tactical reasons at half-time.