The reigning Premier League champions showed their class to win 4-0, but Guardiola was extremely complimentary about Albion’s determination to take the game to his side in the north west.
He said, “Few teams come here and play with that courage. This courage led to the chances they had, but the difference today was that my players up front are incredibly good.
“Managers like Graham are good for football. When two teams want to play and show courage, the football is fantastic.
“People will say ‘you’ve only said that because you won four-zero’ but sometimes teams come here, defend for 90 minutes deep and lose four-zero too.
“This team created more chances to score a goal than the teams that defend deep. They played to hurt us and score goals.”
Guardiola was keen to point out the chances Albion created against his side, and admitted there were lessons to be learned on a managerial level after his team’s victory.
“Sometimes the opponents have the courage and personality to say ‘okay, we’re going to play’.
“All their players have quality and they created some problems that we don’t normally have, compared to teams that just want to play the long ball — they wanted to play.
“They had two or three clear chances, and if they score a goal to make it 1-1, anything could have happened.
“They knew exactly what they wanted to do today and they caused us problems, so it’s a good lesson for me.”