Pep Guardiola couldn’t hide his true feelings about Liverpool when addressing Manchester City’s recent form.
The Spaniard is aiming to win a fifth Premier League title in a row this season, and a seventh in eight years, but those ambitions were dealt a setback in a 2-1 defeat by Bournemouth on Saturday while simultaneously the Reds came from behind to beat Brighton by that same scoreline.
That combination of results saw Arne Slot’s side usurp the champions as league leaders, and with 10 matches gone, the signs are that there could be prolonged Merseyside involvement in the 2024/25 title race.
Guardiola hails ‘top-class’ Liverpool
Speaking ahead of Man City’s Champions League meeting away to Sporting Lisbon tonight, Guardiola kept his team’s defeat to the Cherries in perspective while subtly revealing what he thinks of Liverpool.
The 53-year-old said (via BBC Sport): “I know our standards. We lost one game in the Premier League. Maybe we will lose against Brighton and Tottenham [City’s next two league matches], but we lost one game and we are two points behind a top-class team in Liverpool.
“I know people expect us to win 38 games 5-0 and the Treble every season because this is our standards, but this will not happen.”
Guardiola knows Liverpool could be a threat this season
Arsenal may have been City’s closest challengers in the past two seasons, but throughout Guardiola’s eight-and-a-bit years at the Etihad Stadium, no team has posed a sterner threat to their domestic dominance than Liverpool.
His epic rivalry with Jurgen Klopp is no more after the German departed Anfield six months ago, but Slot’s start on Merseyside suggests that the two teams who’ve claimed the last seven Premier League titles between them could be in for some titanic tussles over the coming months.
The Spaniard’s reference about being expected to win games ‘5-0’ is a pertinent one where the Reds are concerned – of our eight top-flight wins so far this season, only two have been by more than two goals, while our last four league victories were all secured by the narrowest of margins.
Liverpool mightn’t be pulverising teams into submission but they’ve certainly been finding a way to get the job done under Slot, and Guardiola will know full well that such a quality makes them a genuine threat to Man City this term.