Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola spoke about what next for the team in their Premier League title race with Arsenal
Pep Guardiola insisted his Manchester City team will fight Arsenal with everything they have left in the race for the Premier League title. The Blues dropped points for the second successive match with a 1-1 draw leaving them nine points off top spot with a game in hand.
Arsenal had left it late to beat Everton on Saturday night and broke the deadlock as City were going through their final preparations at West Ham. Bernardo Silva gave City the lead in the capital but some poor defending allowed the home team to level with a corner and Guardiola’s side were unable to get back in front.
City’s manager had suggested on Friday that the race would be over if they did not win at West Ham, but had a new reality after the draw at the London Stadium. As jubilant as Arsenal will be at another excellent day for them, they will go to bed knowing City will not roll over.
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“No. It’s not over. Because we didn’t lose. No, it’s not over. We continue,” Guardiola told TNT Sports. “We have an incredible team, spirit, we fought after an incredible amount of effort in Madrid with the result. How we played the first half with the shape, more control for the quality of players and about the energy in the second half with incredibly talented players. The last two games with Nottingham Forest we played much better, we are an incredible team. We played so good and until the end we continue.
Asked at the end of his interview if the title race was still on, he said: “Now we rest and I don’t know how many days off I will give and prepare Madrid and I ask to our people these guys deserve it. Nine points is a lot against Arsenal but we have a game in hand, we have the game at home (against Arsenal), we have to try it until the end. When it is not possible we congratulate the champion.”
Guardiola was left to rue another display where City hadn’t made the most of the chances they had created while letting in a goal from a rare defensive lapses. The manager thinks a lack of goals has cost them – especially in the second half of the season – as he reeled off a handful of games where they have been punished despite being the better team.
“We didn’t score enough goals when we had the quality to score and they scored and punished us,” he said. “We always had the ability to score a lot of goals – I don’t know how many times we scored five goals in 10 years – and this season we had chances: Sunderland, Brighton at home, Chelsea at home, today, Nottingham Forest.
“Except two games, Arsenal away and United away, we didn’t deserve anything. The rest, we deserved better but we didn’t score enough goals. That punished us this season.”
;)
