Guardiola urges City to learn from Anfield pain
Pep Guardiola has challenged his Manchester City stars to use their dramatic 4-3 defeat at Liverpool as a warning to guard against complacency.
Guardiola’s side saw their 30-match unbeaten run in the Premier League come to a stunning end at Anfield on Sunday.
The leaders fell behind to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s early opener and although Leroy Sane equalised before half- time, City were blown away by three goals in nine second half minutes from Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah.
Although late goals from Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan put a gloss on the scoresheet, Guardiola had no complaints about his side’s first league defeat since April 5 at Chelsea.
Conceding that all the talk of City winning the title at a canter and possibly going unbeaten throughout the entire season On how this loss can help the team made it hard to keep his players motivated, the Spaniard said: “In every press conference for the last few months you have said that the Premier League is done.
“I always said no. It is still to be done. Sometimes the worse thing is when people say from one month ago that it is over.
“It’s so difficult to maintain this run, especially against good teams like Liverpool.
“Football is an unpredictable game. We have to fight until the end to win the league.”
Guardiola admitted City had lost their composure in the second half after being rattled by Liverpool’s relentless pressing and the Anfield atmosphere.
“We lost a lot of balls. Liverpool are so aggressive without the ball and we had little bit of a problem to control that,” he said.
“We started the second On why City lost to Liverpool. half good until the goal from Firmino. After that we lost our control and we become involved in the environment at Anfield.”
“Now we must be positive, analyse why we lost and look to the game against Newcastle,” said Guardiola.
“It’s never good news to lose, but when you lose it’s important not to lose again.
“We have a young team and maybe it can be good for the future. I’ve won a lot of titles and always I’ve dropped points
on the way.”
LIVERPOOL: We have a young team and maybe it can be good for the future. I’ve won a lot of titles and always I’ve dropped points on the way. We lost a lot of balls. Liverpool are so aggressive without the ball and we had little bit of a problem to control that