Pep Guardiola performs surprising U-turn on Man City claim ahead of Liverpool clash

Pep Guardiola has backtracked on his previous gloomy prediction about Manchester City’s title prospects, insisting that this weekend’s monumental clash against Liverpool at Anfield is not the be-all and end-all.

Instead, he struck a more optimistic note ahead of Sunday’s game, despite knowing that an in-form Arne Slot’s Liverpool could surge 11 points clear of his beleaguered squad with a win.

Amidst a troubled run that sees City without a win in six games across all competitions and having suffered three consecutive Premier League defeats, Guardiola’s side is also grappling with injury woes, deprived of key defensive midfielders and numerous centre-backs.

Nevertheless, regardless of these setbacks, which he highlighted in a Friday press conference, he maintains belief about his four-in-a-row champions.

After losing at Tottenham, Guardiola agreed the title would be out of City’s reach if they lost at Liverpool. He said: “Yep. In terms of Liverpool winning, winning, yep. I would say when you lose three games in a row it is the most wrong thing to say that you will be champions.”

Yet when pressed again about the implications of the Liverpool fixture this week, Guardiola downplayed its definitive nature, saying: “In the situation we have it’s not realistic to think about big targets.

“The situation is to think about one game and build the momentum to continue. Even in the situation we have been in in the past thinking about winning the titles was not realistic, we recovered.

“Liverpool are so powerful in all departments, especially the boxes. It will be difficult but in the situation that we are in losing a lot of games in the row and three in the Premier League, I always think about targets in March or April.

“It doesn’t matter what happens on Sunday. It will be more difficult if we don’t take a result on Sunday but there are many more games to play.”

Guardiola, on the flip side, does not expect City’s season to suddenly be saved with a win. The Citizens have not won in front of an Anfield crowd since May 2003.

“That is the big mistake of your analysis,” the Catalan argued. “The result won’t change anything. The mood would be better but after three days against Nottingham Forest if you are not stable it’s not going to happen.

“You are stable when you are winning 10 or 12 games in a row, like we have done as many years. One game now is not going to change the feeling of how we are as a team.

“All I would ask is no the result but the players back. I just ask the players back to have the team that we created at the beginning of the season to go everywhere to be who we are. From the beginning of the season we could not do that.

“That is the situation that we had. When people ask me what I want, win games? Yeah but if we don’t have the players sooner or later we’re going to fall down again.”