'Never saw Lionel Messi do that!' - Pep Guardiola in awe of Rayan Cherki's rabona but has one piece of advice for Man City's maverick midfielder

Cherki helped City open the scoring against a stubborn Sunderland by laying the ball off to Ruben Dias to score a thumping goal from long range. Josko Gvardiol's header doubled the Cityzens' advantage but Cherki stole the show with his cheeky cross for Foden. Cherki now leads the assists chart in the Premier League, setting up five goals in his debut campaign following his £30m ($40m) move from Lyon last summer.

Guardiola praised his player and brought up Messi's name although he also urged Cherki to follow one key lesson from the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner.

Guardiola told a press conference: "Rayan is an exceptional player, he is so young, he has a huge personality, he proved it against Fulham in the toughest moments. He had the ball at 5-4 and every time gave us an extra pass, he is not scared and has self-confidence. In the final third he had something special. What I admire the most about Rayan is not the skills. 

"I never saw Messi play a cross like he has done. Messi is the best player to play the game but I never saw these kind of crosses. Crosses are fine, right or left or which part of your feet, it doesn't matter. If it is effective it is fine but I like the simplicity because I learned from Messi that I never make a mistake with the simple things. 

"The simple things he does perfectly then he dribbles past four or five players. I want players to do the simple things well and after that you have special talent and he can do whatever he wants but if he doesn't work now it will be a problem. He will be in trouble."

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Cherki told BBC Match of the Day: "Really proud. We worked many weeks for that, we played very well. Defended and attacked really well. Very proud. I worked for that, I know my quality, my quality is my technique, when I play with Phil [Foden], Erling [Haaland], Omar [Marmoush], it's very important to give the good balls for them. Phil is a great player, he works for the team, runs for the team."

"It's difficult when the team come to defend with 10 players in the box, it's complicated. For Ruben [Dias] it's a first time and a last because the goal was unbelievable. We want to win all the games. We don't want to concede goals. Important for us to defend well because then we attack better. We are very proud to give the pleasure to the fans. We will work all week for the next game."

City are just two points behind Premier League leaders Arsenal, having trailed the Gunners by five points just two weeks ago following their defeat at Newcastle. City can put Mikel Arteta's side under more pressure when they visit Crystal Palace on Sunday although first they will play Real Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday, looking to respond after their 2-0 loss at home to Bayer Leverkusen in their last European fixture.

"It is better to be closer to the top of the league but from my experience it is consistency," Guardiola said on the title race. "Consistency comes from the way you play, not from the results or being two points in front or four behind. it is how you perform and how much you grow. Today has been one of the best performances of the year. We had good momentum for the second half. 

"Wolves [on the opening day of the season] the first half was good and the second half we suffered. We were not consistent and we talked a lot about the reason why. We did really good things against Fulham in the first half and stopped doing it in the second half. It's not about specific movement defensively or offensively. 

"Today against a team who had have top results so far we gave away one chance but apart from that it was a good performance. With the Premier League I have the feeling that Arsenal are going to drop few points and if we want to be there we have to win games and games and games come from the way you perform, not just a lucky action."