Pep Guardiola said that Manchester City’s return to the top of the Premier League was due to their refusal to concede the title to Liverpool. He, however cautioned that the team will face “a final” against Chelsea on Sunday.
Guardiola’s City returned to the top of the Premier League after a 2-0 win against Everton, as Aymeric Laporte and Gabriel Jesus scored for the defending Premier League champions at Goodison Park.
“We are top of the table, but we have to wait for Liverpool to go to Old Trafford and if they win we are not top,” he stated during the post match press conference.
“It’s much better,” said the manager. “It’s the best we can do. The reality is we could have been 10 points behind one month ago when we played Liverpool. A few days ago we could have been seven points behind. Now we are top of the league.”
“The lesson is never give up. That is a lesson for all athletes. Try to win the games, because life can change immediately. Now we must prepare and recover well for Chelsea.”
“I don’t know how far we will get, maybe we will die in the road, but we are trying. We have played one more game than Liverpool, it’s good to be top. I don’t think too much about that but four or five days ago we could have been seven points behind, it is a lesson to never give up.”
“We had good minutes in the first half,” Guardiola said. “We had more problems making our build-up after half-time and in terms of our consistency,” he told Sky Sports.
“But we didn’t concede a shot on target. Scoring in the last minute of the first half helped us a lot, and in the second half they pushed more and it was more difficult to play our natural game.”