Guardiola: We need to win all of our remaining games
City resume their title defence with home games against Brighton & Hove Albion and Watford while they also have to play Newcastle United and Aston Villa as well as Wolves, Leeds United and West Ham United.
Spanish manager Pep Guardiola claimed that Manchester City will have to win all seven of their remaining fixtures to become Premier League champions once more after they missed a chance to kill off Liverpool’s title hopes.
A lapse of concentration from City at the start of the second half allowed Sadio Mané to score an equaliser that kept Liverpool just one point adrift of the Premier League leaders.
Liverpool have to play Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and Wolverhampton Wanderers in their run-in, but Guardiola predicts that Jürgen Klopp’s team will not drop a point from now until the end of the season, so the Catalan has told his players that they cannot afford any slip-ups if they are to retain the title.
“I have a feeling that we leave them alive,” Guardiola, the City manager, said. “If we drop points in one game, we will not be champions. If we draw one game we will not be champions.
“I have to review this game but I feel it was a missed opportunity.
“They have to win all the games too, and that will not be easy but today all City and Liverpool fans will see that both teams tried to win the game and I think it’s nice to say that.
“We have to lift our heads up. I said to the players: ‘I don’t want one second of sadness’, because I’m so glad and happy with the way we played.”
Klopp agreed with his opposite number when asked if his team needed to take 21 points from their last seven matches.. “We knew in January that if we wanted to win we had to win 18 games, if there was one that we could [afford to] draw, it’s today,” Klopp said.
After facing Atletico Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday and Liverpool in the FA Cup three days later, City resume their title defence with home games against Brighton & Hove Albion and Watford.
They also have to play Newcastle United and Aston Villa at home and have away trips to Wolves, Leeds United and West Ham United.
Kevin De Bruyne doubts that City and Liverpool will win all their remaining matches.
“A lot of people spoke about whoever wins this match, the title goes there but the schedule is way too tough for both teams to win every game,” he said.
“We will try but the way we played today is the way we move forward. I think we had the upper hand but didn’t win.”
Jordan Henderson, the Liverpool captain, was relieved that his team did not fall four points behind City. “If they do slip up we have to be there right behind them. We stay positive and keep going to the end,” he said.
