Pep Guardiola is fearful that Manchester City could soon find themselves with too much ground to make up on Liverpool at the summit of the Premier League.
The champions’ hopes of a fifth successive title have hit the skids over the past month, with a 0-4 hammering at home to Tottenham on Saturday marking a third consecutive top-flight defeat and five losses in a row across all competitions.
City are currently five points adrift of the Reds, who could extend that gap away to bottom club Southampton this afternoon, and the top two face off at Anfield next Sunday. If Arne Slot’s team win those two games, they’d be 11 points clear of their nearest rivals in the table in just over a week’s time.
Guardiola was asked after his team’s heavy defeat to Spurs whether an 11-point difference would be too vast to make up on Liverpool if it were to open up after their head-to-head clash next weekend.
The City manager replied (via BBC Sport): “Yes, it’s true, but we’re not thinking about winning or losing [the title]. We are not in the situation to think about what is going to happen at the end of the season. If in the end we don’t win, it’s because we don’t deserve it. Now you realise how difficult what we have done is.”
Liverpool fans won’t be getting ahead of themselves just yet, even with the Manchester club enduring a horrific month, as we know from previous years just how imperious the reigning champions can be in the second half of the season.
The Reds should beat Southampton today if they play to their best, but every single Premier League fixture is fraught with danger and carries the potential for a surprise, while Slot’s side begin December with a fiendish triple header against City and away to Newcastle and Everton, all in the space of a week.
What LFC do have, though, is a glorious incentive to put themselves in a commanding position prior to that visit to St James’ Park on Wednesday week. If we were to win our next two games, which’d involve landing a direct hit on Guardiola’s team, it’d represent a massive psychological boost to us and a hammer blow for them.
The champions won’t panic just yet, given the evidence of recent years, but Liverpool have it in their power to open up a sizeable gap on the Cityzens over the next fortnight. Before they can start to dream of double-digit margins, though, they must take care of business at St Mary’s this afternoon.
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