LONDON: With Manchester City mired in a six-game winless slump and facing one of their biggest challenges this season at Liverpool this weekend, manager Pep Guardiola said the onus was on him to prove he can right the ship.

City’s staggering loss of form resulted in five successive defeats in all competitions and while they ended that losing streak on Tuesday, a 3-3 home draw with Feyenoord in the Champions league, having been three up, only fuelled the sense that the wheels have fallen off Guardiola’s juggernaut.

A loss at Anfield on Sunday would leave Guardiola’s men 11 points adrift of the leaders in the Premier League title race, but the Spaniard said he was thinking big picture rather than the potential ramifications of one game.

“Of course, I am thinking what I can do to help them [the players] but in the long career as a player and a manager you live these situations,” Guardiola, who recently signed a two-year contract extension, said at his pre-match press conference on Friday.

“When you live it — accept it and challenge it. No complaining, no blaming, no pointing the figure or running from your responsibility. If you don’t win, you’re in trouble, I know that.

“The moment I feel I am not positive for the club, another one [manager] will come but I want the opportunity to try it and I want to rebuild the team in many aspects from now on until the end of the season and the next seasons. I ask for that challenge and this opportunity to do it,” he continued, in an answer that stretched for nearly four minutes.

“I know what we need, what we have to do. We don’t have the consistency we had right now but which team during 10 years in the world has been consistent, tell me one. They don’t exist — not in NBA, tennis, golf.

“It proves how we are as sportsmen and competitors. It is easiest when you have 10, 12 games in a row and everyone is fit and in

their prime. I have to prove myself now. I have to find a solution and a way to do it and I am trying every day.”

City have repeatedly rewritten the record books of English football during Guardiola’s eight years in charge.

They have won six Premier League titles in seven seasons, including an unprecedented four in a row, and won the treble in 2023.

But Guardiola has repeatedly called his side “fragile” and lacking in confidence in recent weeks.

“In the first knock we are not as stable as we have always been,” he said. “In the past when we were able to go 3-0 up, we didn’t score the fourth, we didn’t score the fifth, but the game was dead.

“Now in the first moments [of adversity] I don’t know how we are going to react for obvious reasons that we have, for the desperation to win, for the absence of important players.

“The best test to prove how stable we are is Anfield because we cannot expect they will not have that moment and momentum and that is when we have to stand up as a team.”

While a defeat on Sunday would make City’s title hopes “more difficult,” Guardiola said, the Spaniard reiterated that he was not thinking of trophies.

“In the situation we’re in, it’s not realistic to think about big targets. The situation is to think about the next game and getting the momentum to continue and that will come back,” he said.

“I have learned all my life to move forward in the good moments and the bad moments. It’s how many times you stand up when again and again you fall. We will be back, I know that. I don’t know when that is — the truth.”

City are second-favourites to win a Premier League game for the first time in more than 2,500 days, according to one British bookmaker, but Liverpool manager Arne Slot is reading nothing into the champions’ meltdown.

Slot’s rampant Reds go into the weekend off the high of beating Real Madrid 2-0 to top the Champions League table.

Liverpool have barely put a foot wrong in the Premier League either, surging into an eight-point lead after just 12 games.

All three teams who have enjoyed a lead of eight points or more at this stage of the season in Premier League history have gone on to win the title.

City are there for the taking but Slot is wary.

“They are still a very good team and one of the reasons why Pep is the best in the world, he always comes up with solutions for his problems,” the Dutchman said at his pre-match press conference on Thursday.

“One might be (midfielder) Rodri is out now but he will come up with a solution, hopefully it is after Sunday. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pep comes up with another brilliant idea.”

Even when City were in their pomp, visits to Anfield have always been difficult.

Nine times Guardiola has taken a City side to Liverpool and only once did he taste victory — a 4-1 win behind closed doors in February 2021. Five times City were beaten with three other games ending in draws — including last season.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2024