Liverpool are on a dangerous run of form in the Premier League but Manchester City will do everything they can to stay one step ahead, City manager Pep Guardiola said on Saturday as the title race heats up in the final weeks of the season.
Liverpool’s 2-0 victory over Watford in the day’s early kickoff moved Jurgen Klopp’s side to the summit for a few hours before City beat Burnley 2-0 to reclaim top spot and move a point clear.
The results set up a mouth-watering clash between City and Liverpool next Sunday in a game that could decide the title race.
“The next Premier League game we will play against Liverpool so we know they are going to win almost all the games — hopefully not the next one — but we will try to do the same,” Guardiola told reporters.
“When you arrive in May challenging to lift the title it means you have had an incredible season. Being here is because we work a lot and we have done that every single season.
“That is a lot of credit for the whole organisation. We will fight. The opponent is so tough and good, but they said we will make a proper battle and we accept that.”
City and Liverpool were neck and neck in similar fashion in the 2018-19 season as both teams put together winning runs before Guardiola’s side clinched the title by a point on the final day.
“People say ‘experience’ when you are old but it works when you get good lessons and you learn from them. What you have done in the past doesn’t mean it will happen again,” Guardiola added.
“Every game will be like this. We need to play these games with this target and we will try.”
Meanwhile, Klopp said he did not expect his team to play their best game of the Premier League season immediately after the international break and praised them for rising to the challenge.
“These games can go either way. If you score early on, then just get in a flow, it can go in one direction. But it’s really unlikely that after the international break you see the best game of the season,” Klopp told reporters.
Klopp said former Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson had drilled his relegation-threatened Watford side to make life tough for the title contenders at Anfield but the result mattered more than the performance.
“We had to work through this game against a well-organised Watford side,” Klopp said. “Roy’s doing a really incredible job. At 1-0, nothing changed, they were going for counter-attacks. When the players came on, going for counter-attacks.
“It makes it uncomfortable. We had in the first half the one scary moment when Alisson (Becker) had this incredible save but we scored our goal and kept it controlled, which is the most important thing.
“Scoring the second was obviously kind of a relief. Winning the game is all we wanted. The boys delivered and so now we can carry on.”
Liverpool travel to Benfica for the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday night before a blockbuster clash away at City next weekend.
