With nine games remaining, Liverpool is now the favorite to win the Premier League, according to Pep Guardiola, following Manchester City’s goalless draw with Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium.
Jürgen Klopp’s team led by two points over Arsenal and three of the champions after Liverpool overcame a 2-1 deficit to defeat Brighton at Anfield earlier in the day. Guardiola was asked if Liverpool are currently in a dominant position, given that both teams have just 27 points still to play for.
Indeed. The manager stated, “Favorites is always first, followed by Arsenal, and us in third place.”
When asked if he was worried that City would run out of games before Liverpool, he said, “Yes.” “We don’t control it,” Guardiola declared. “On Wednesday, all we can focus on is Aston Villa.” You are the favorites if you are leading the league, as we have previously been.
We definitely like to win. We accept the argument. a close contest. I’m ecstatic that I recognized my squad. They made an effort. That was our objective. We’ll watch and see. Before Aston Villa, we must mentally and physically rejuvenate.”
As a result, it was City’s first home loss without a goal in 58 games. Mikel Arteta celebrated his team’s growth after Arsenal lost 4-1 to City in the corresponding matchup the previous season, but he also acknowledged that they might have needed to win in order to be champions.
The manager declared, “We are improving, we are competing better, and we are understanding how to compete in these games.”. “There’s another step to take to win championships, and that’s that you have to win. Today we were able to draw, and we have to improve a lot to win.”
Arteta was asked if a point was a good result for Arsenal’s title hopes. “I don’t know,” he said. “You want to win the game. You prepare to win it. If you cannot win it, make sure you draw it. We did that.
“Eleven months ago we were here and the story was very different. You have to make steps as a team and today we’ve done that. We still have many more to come. No way can you be fully happy [with a point].
“It generates belief [today’s result]. It continues momentum and the good position that we’re in. The fact that the boys are there and they want more and they’re demanding individually from themselves saying: ‘I could have done better, I haven’t done this as well as when we trained’ – that tells you just how much the boys want it. We’ll try our best to continue what we’re doing.”
After Arsenal won the reverse game 1-0 in October, they have now prevented City from scoring this season. “Yeah huge. It’s extremely difficult to do that,” Arteta said.
“It shows you the commitment of every player, the discipline they showed and how they compete. One thing is to play a football match and another one is to compete in it. Today we did that really well.”
Arsenal employed a low block to stymie City. Guardiola joked when asked what the solution was. “Kill someone. Play with nine,” he said. “They defend well and a lot – surrounding Erling [Haaland]. So be patient and find the pass. They defended well with a lot of people.
“There are different ways. They did well with the press and then after the block. It doesn’t matter how many players you defend with, the main target is not to concede.”
Arsenal also slowed the game down though Guardiola refused to criticise the visitors. “It’s not my job. I control my team and the rest I don’t know. Nothing to say about the referee – Anthony Taylor must be happy because nothing wrong happened. Normally it happens when the referee becomes more important to the players. The ref was really good. It was OK,” he said.
Bernardo Silva struck an optimistic note regarding City’s prospects of retaining the title again. “A lot can happen,” the midfielder said.
“Now we don’t depend on ourselves, we depend on Liverpool and Arsenal now because we don’t play against them again, so we need them to drop points as well as do our job and win our own games. Today it was a different [Arsenal] team, more experienced.”
