Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, has expressed his disappointment at finishing far behind Liverpool in the current season as the Reds won their first Premier League title in 30 years.
Liverpool emerged champions after City was defeated by Chelsea 2-1 at the Stamford Bridge. Speaking after the match, Guardiola, who congratulated the Merseyside club for their victory, admitted that his team dropped a lot of points early in the season.
He, therefore, charged his lad to now go and end the current campaign with more silverware as they are still in the Champions League and the FA Cup.
“Congratulations to Liverpool, their fans, the manager, the players. Well deserved. They are good champions. Now, we have five or six weeks to play. The FA Cup on Sunday is important, and we need to achieve qualification for UCL, and after that, we need to prepare for Madrid,” said Guardiola.
On his disappointment at being so far behind Liverpool, Pep noted that the other 18 teams are further as well, as Liverpool didn’t drop points.
He, therefore, stated that Man City needs to be more consistent next season and recover the points lost this season.
“Two seasons we were 25 points in front of Liverpool and the next season they recovered. Now we’ve got to recover like Liverpool.”
Pep Guardiola happy despite losing to Chelsea
Despite the loss that led to Liverpool being declared champions without kicking a ball, the boss said he was more than happy with the fight and attitude of his players.
While noting that the team was generally better in attacking, the former Bayern Munich coach said it is not easy to attack Chelsea – a team physicality in their presence.
“Unfortunately, we made mistakes, and at this level against this quality, it is difficult. We played until the end with a huge personality. In general, I am satisfied with the performance. We wanted to win the game. We did good things, but we have to learn we have to be consistent.”
Guardiola, who also admitted that winning the Premier League year after year was a huge challenge, said he never thought that his team will always win the league, but was proud of his achievement of winning eight out of ten titles.
He also rued the absence of one central defender and Aymeric Laporte due to injuries in the season, which he said was a major problem for them. Fernandinho had to fill in the backline for the team.
“I’ve never thought as a manager that you can always win. Liverpool, after winning the Champions League, and not winning the Premier League for 30 years, played with incredible focus as if it was the last chance they had.
“We cannot forget that we won two titles this season, and we have two more to play for. We are going to try. We are going to try and qualify for the Champions League next season, and then we can play in it in August.”
