Pep Guardiola has insisted that Liverpool remain Manchester City’s biggest challengers in their defence of the Premier League title despite their slow start to the season.
The Reds will fall 16 points behind the Sky Blues if the champions earn all three points at Anfield on Sunday but the Spanish boss insists there is still a long way to go in the campaign despite Jurgen Klopp already ruling his side out of the title race.
“Always has been, always it is and always will be,” he said (via the Independent). “Because I know the quality they have, they know the quality we have.
“If I was asked this question with five or ten games left, I will say I think Liverpool cannot catch the top of the league – in that case, Arsenal. But being in the position that we are, with the World Cup, everything can still happen.”
The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss continued: “The table didn’t ever play the game. Not just against Liverpool, in every single game. The game will be dictated by what happens on the pitch, not because we are in front or we are behind or these kind of things.”
“The opinion I have about this team, nothing changed because of the situation in the table. Not one second.”
Liverpool have defeated City in both of their last two meetings, however, with both of them games being played at neutral venues.
A 3-2 FA Cup semi-final victory at Wembley last term was followed by a 3-1 win for Klopp’s men in this season’s Community Shield clash at Leicester’s King Power Stadium in July.
Guardiola believes his side have always played well when they’ve travelled to L4, however, and he’ll be hoping for more of the same tomorrow.
“I had the feeling always in Anfield we have played really well. In other games, maybe in the last two games we were a little bit soft for different circumstances,” the former Blaugrana boss added.
“You have to win duels. When they push you, you have to push. When they are there, you have to be there. The semi-finals of the FA Cup, it was a tough to recover the incredible effort we had done in Champions League.
“In the Community Shield, still we were not ready. They were in one pace higher than us and without that, against that team, you cannot compete.”
A win for City would all but end Liverpool’s hopes of Premier League glory this season as you’d have to suggest that gaining 16 points back on the Citizens is a mammoth task.
We found ourselves a significant amount of points behind the Etihad outfit last season, however, and still took the title race to the last day before losing out by a single point.
We need to take confidence from our last two games with Guardiola’s side and hopefully make it three wins in a row against them on Sunday.