Pep Guardiola has warned Manchester City haven’t any likelihood of chasing down Arsenal within the Premier League title race unless they’ll discover a strategy to consistently address their second-half slumps.
After watching the Gunners ease to a 3-0 win over Sunderland on Saturday, City faced the prospect of sitting nine points behind the league leaders on Sunday evening after they took on Liverpool at Anfield.
Guardiola’s side have developed an unwanted habit of falling asleep within the second-half of games, scoring less goals, squandering more probabilities and dropping 11 points for the reason that turn of the 12 months – most notably against Tottenham initially of the month.
They bucked that trend on Merseyside with goals from Bernardo Silva and Erling Haaland securing a comeback victory that reduced the gap back to 6 points, putting pressure on Mikel Arteta’s side once more.
City will likely be just three points behind in the event that they beat Fulham on Wednesday night with Arsenal in motion away to Brentford the next day.
While title talk on the Etihad has been ignited somewhat, Guardiola has warned City ‘won’t win’ against Fulham or another side unless they’ll start going the gap in games again.
Asked how much of a difference Sunday’s developments have had, Guardiola told a press conference on Tuesday: ‘I understand your query. Each time within the last weeks when I’m going before the sport in flash interviews, at all times is you lose you’re losing every little thing and going to vanish from planet Earth.
Get your football fix
Don’t desire to miss the week’s biggest football stories? Metro’s exclusive football newsletter, In The Mixer, is your essential guide.
From the newest transfer rumours and managerial moves to evaluation of the largest games and loads more, our experts have you ever covered.
Enroll here, it’s an open goal.
‘What I’m saying is what do we now have to do to beat Fulham? What do we now have to do higher to make the second half closer to the primary? What’s the rationale why within the second half we’re still dropping our performances?
‘If we don’t improve that, we won’t win – possibly if not against Fulham, against Newcastle or the subsequent [game].
‘I understand how nice three points or nine points and this type of stuff is, however it doesn’t make for winning titles or arriving on the latter stages to be near fighting for titles.’
Through the years, City have been capable of put together wonderful runs of form to get them over the road. But with key figures from those teams like Kevin de Bruyne, Kyle Walker and Ilkay Gundogan not around, Guardiola continues to be to be convinced this current City side can reach those levels.
‘When we now have 60 or 70 per cent of latest players, we don’t have what we had prior to now immediately,’ he said.
‘After the second or third season we had done it, we’re capable of do it but now we now have to prove it. I don’t know if we’re capable of win three, 4, five, six games in a row. I don’t know.’
MORE: Harry Maguire says one thing was ‘nowhere near adequate’ under Ruben Amorim
MORE: Paul Merson makes daring Brentford vs Arsenal prediction after Man City ‘pressure’
MORE: Eni Aluko and Simon Jordan in heated row during talkSPORT ad break after saying her ‘entitlement would re-sink the Titanic’