Pep Guardiola was not at all downcast after Manchester City's 3-1 defeat to Chelsea on Saturday.

City eventually succumbed to Antonio Conte's Blues at the Etihad Stadium after having plenty of chances to score following Gary Cahill's own-goal to open proceedings.

Diego Costa, Willian and Eden Hazard hit back for Chelsea in the second half, prompting many to question the title credentials of the Sky Blues, but Guardiola felt his side's performance indicated that they are definitely on the right track.

"Of course, I would have preferred to have won against Chelsea and we would be top of the league," he said ahead of Tuesday night's Champions League meeting with Celtic.

"Then our analysis would be completely different.

"But I'm confident because we played 60, 65 minutes good. We need to continue, continue, continue and when we do, we'll be there.

"When our game is up and down, like Crystal Palace and Burnley, sometimes you win when you don't play good or don't deserve it.

"But now I'm happy and half an hour, one hour later when I am home after the Chelsea game, I think to myself: 'this season is going to be good'.

"In general, I am so, so satisfied in the short time we have been together

"We analyse the last minutes and the result and they won, congratulations. But the way we played was quite well, really quite well.

"That's why I'm satisfied. Much better than the last two games away where we won and nobody said anything.

"I'm so proud of our performance. The way we played good during that period here. We played good and faster than in Munich and even in Barcelona, when we had one player, who was amazing and helped us to help us take those steps.

"It's a long road and this does not finish our season."