Pep Guardiola has said Manchester City’s return to winning ways will “clear our minds and souls” as he insisted the Premier League champions will get back to their best after a welcome 2-0 victory at Leicester.

Guardiola expressed his relief after City halted their miserable run of results by recording their first win in six matches and only their second in 14 in all competitions.

Related: Savinho and Haaland find answers to Manchester City’s problems at Leicester

“I think it is more relief than happiness, I think that’s the right word,” the manager said. “As a performance it was not the best, I couldn’t expect it, really. Leicester were better in the last 10-15 minutes of the first half, in the last 15-20 of the ­second. The game was tight. We have to improve a lot. We will improve as the results improve, that’s for sure. The best of us will come back.

“Against Everton [the 1-1 draw on Boxing Day] the performance was far better than today but today we won and that’s what we need to clean our minds and souls and see we can win games.

“I never thought it was difficult to win one single game but now we feel it. Maybe it’s good. That period helps to see what we have done, it made me reflect on how difficult it is to do what we have done.”

Guardiola saluted ­Haaland, who made sure of the victory late on after recently becoming a dad. Savinho opened the scoring after firing in the rebound from Phil Foden’s saved shot. “Sometimes Erling has been judged badly but it’s part of football. He’s tired, he’s played a lot of minutes. He’s become a father for the first time in the last few days, a lot of emotions and an exciting few days for him.”

Ruud van Nistelrooy said he was encouraged by Leicester’s display despite slipping to a fourth successive league defeat. Leicester are 18th, two points in front of Ipswich, who host Chelsea on Monday, and two behind Wolves, who levelled late on to draw at Tottenham.

“There are two ways to look at results,” the former Manchester United striker said. “You can look purely at results: when you win, you’re great, when you lose, you’re bad. But we want to develop our players in the game model and when things come off on the pitch on a day like this against a great side as a mana­ger and coaches and the squad you feel you are developing something and that is a nice feeling. But the best ­feeling is to collect points.”