MANCHESTER -- Pep Guardiola believes Manchester City are adjusting to his coaching methods more quickly than his teams did at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
City are four points behind Premier League leaders Chelsea after they let a 1-0 lead slip to lose 3-1 to them at the Etihad on Saturday.
But Guardiola said their performance had been better than those in their two previous Premier League victories, at Crystal Palace and Burnley.
"We play good, faster than in Munich and even in Barcelona, when we had one player, [Lionel Messi] who was amazing and helped us to help us create those steps," Guardiola told a news conference ahead of City's Champions League clash with Celtic on Tuesday.
"Of course I would have preferred to have won against Chelsea and we would be top of the league. Then our analysis would be completely different.
"But I'm confident because we play 60, 65 minutes good. We need to continue, continue, continue and when we do, we'll be there."
The City boss said the performance had given him belief that his side would have a good season.
"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," he said.
"But now I'm happy and when I was home after the Chelsea game, I thought to myself: 'This season is going to be good.'
"We lost against Chelsea, but we have to keep going and play the way we can play. We conceded in the last minutes because we didn't control the game, we played more with the heart."
The defeat saw City slip to fourth in the Premier League, below Arsenal and Liverpool.