Pep Guardiola felt Manchester City were still far from their best as they thrashed League Two Salford 8-0 in the FA Cup third round.

The City boss did acknowledge, however, that the result should further lift spirits after the club’s poor end to 2024.

James McAtee led the way with a second-half hat-trick as City powered through to the next round with a dominant display in a one-sided tie at the Etihad Stadium.

City’s victory was their third in succession in all competitions – the first time they have accomplished that feat since October.

Guardiola, whose side now face successive away games at Brentford, Ipswich and Paris St Germain, said: “It’s just a game, but we cannot deny that we need the victories. It’s the third in a row.

“Of course, we are far away and still we have a big, big problem behind, in the back four.

“But in the game everyone made incredible contributions and we scored a lot of goals. For a long time this didn’t happen. We need it for our mood and the people are happier.

“Now we have really tough games away in the next days. We keep going.”

Jeremy Doku weighed in with two goals while Jack Grealish got on the scoresheet for the first time in club football since December 2023.

Debutant Divin Mubama and fellow youngster Nico O’Reilly were the other scorers but the headlines were taken by McAtee, who scored his treble inside 19 second-half minutes.

The 22-year-old midfielder, who has impressed in separate loan spells with Sheffield United, is still to establish himself at City.

Guardiola was pleased for him, but will continue to demand more.

He said: “It’s not that I’m not that happy that he scores a hat-trick – that’s not easy – but he can play better. That was not his best.

“But he’s an exceptional guy and has a special talent and his work ethic is unbelievable.”

The game was a harsh lesson for Salford, who had won their past six games in League Two without conceding a goal to put themselves into the promotion picture.

Manager Karl Robinson said: “I just said to the players that, seven games ago, if you’d said we were going to concede eight goals in seven games I would have taken it.

“I just didn’t expect them all to be in that one game!

“I’m so proud of them. I knew coming into this game how this football club is and how this manager respects everybody, and the intensity of his players and himself. We’re always going to have a problem.

“The thing I’ll look back on is some silly errors and I don’t think they had to work too hard for some of their goals.

“But I’m not going to carry it forward into next week and use it as an opportunity to slap my players.

“Our objective is to get out of the league that we’re in and we’ve put ourselves in a wonderful position.”