Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola spoke of his delight for his players after their 3-1 win over Newcastle in the FA Cup

A delighted Pep Guardiola put Manchester City’s win over Newcastle in the FA Cup as their best performance at St James’ Park in his 10 years in English football. The Blues picked up their fourth win in three months against Eddie Howe’s side with a 3-1 victory that keeps their dreams of a Quadruple alive.

The victory was even sweeter for City because Guardiola made 10 changes from the side that had drawn 2-2 with Nottingham Forest in midweek in an admission that some players were too tired with Real Madrid coming next in the Champions League on Wednesday. Erling Haaland was left at home and Bernardo Silva, Rodri, Ruben Dias and Marc Guehi remained on the bench in the north-east.

After a difficult start, City rallied and Savinho got the equaliser on his first start in more than two months and then Omar Marmoush scored his fifth and sixth goals of the season – four of them have come against Newcastle – to book City’s place in the FA Cup quarters. Before then, they will head to Madrid with confidence – but with a lone regret from the manager over the number of chances they missed to win by even more.

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“It’s one of the best feelings,” he said. “Really all the managers have that feeling, look at the performance of Nathan [Ake] – how reliable he is. All of them, there is not one single one that didn’t behave their best. Sometimes you don’t allow them to play much minutes and always you have that feeling. That’s why it’s nice to be in the competitions because it’s nice for them to be involved.

“The only regret I have today is that we missed too many easy chances. That is the only thing we have to really improve because it’s one against one with the keeper, we have to try to finish better.

“Except the first 15-20 minutes that always happens, we talk about that, we could not control but after we dropped and Savinho started to make one against one on the byline we were incredible. It’s the best game we have played against Newcastle here in our period together in 10 years -and a difficult one in the FA Cup.

“I’m really pleased with how we played, how we behaved offensively, defensively, the concentration. It’s top. Eight times in a row in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup means how good this organisation is.”