Pep Guardiola is convinced that Manchester City are ready to turn a corner despite falling further behind Liverpool in the Premier League title race.
City suffered a 2-0 loss against the Reds at Anfield. Cody Gakpo opened the scoring for Arne Slot’s side in the 12th minute before Mo Salah rounded off the triumph with a penalty in the 78th minute. Liverpool were dominant throughout and are now 11 points clear of Guardiola’s champions in the table.
City have lost six of their past seven games – and four successive top-flight defeats – having hit a malaise no-one could have predicted. But Guardiola, who has guided the Etihad Stadium side to the past four titles – believes that his troops will remedy their concerning form. “I have the feeling that from here we can start to build something,” he said.
Call me delusional but I have the feeling that from here we will start to build back to winning games and confidence. Our target cannot be talking about titles in November or December. We didn’t do that when we were top of the league. But at the same time we are still in December, not the end of the season, so many things can still happen.”
City have have a number of injury issues this season. They are struggling in midfield without Rodri, who is sidelined with an ACL issue until the end of the campaign, while Mateo Kovacic also missed out against Liverpool. It meant Bernardo Silva operated as City’s deep-lying player in the engine room while Manuel Akanji was tasked with stepping out of defence.
