Pep Guardiola has laid out a clear read of the Premier League landscape, saying he expects Arsenal and Liverpool to concede very few points this season and urging Manchester City to remain within striking distance.<\/p>\n
Arsenal sit top after dropping points in just two of their opening eight games, those setbacks being a 1\u20130 defeat to Liverpool and a 1\u20131 draw with City. Guardiola suggested the title race may return to the high standards of recent seasons after a summer of heavy investment across the division.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Premier League, I have the feeling now that Arsenal is not going to drop much points. So that is the reality. I have that feeling with Arsenal, with Liverpool as well,\u201d the City manager told assembled media ahead of his side\u2019s trip to Aston Villa on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Guardiola defended Liverpool despite recent results. \u201cNow Liverpool lost their last games\u2014not in the Champions League in Frankfurt\u2014but I saw the game against [Manchester] United, they had incredible chances to win the game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I think Liverpool remain one of the main favourites to do that. And the distance, three, four points at this stage is nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always had the feeling that both teams and maybe another one, they will lose few, few points. That\u2019s why we have to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201canother one\u201d he referenced appears to have been Chelsea, who lost 2\u20131 to newly promoted Sunderland.<\/p>\n
Guardiola mixed sarcasm with resolve when asked about City\u2019s own title hopes, reflecting on the early results. \u201cWell, in the first two games, three games, yeah for sure we [City] are out,\u201d he sniffed. \u201cAnd Liverpool is already done, and now it looks like Liverpool is done.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added a firmer note of intent shortly after. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll tell you that they will be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
The six-time Premier League champion also addressed his critics directly. \u201cI\u2019ve said many times, I know all the pundits, all the specialists or former players, they know everything that is going to happen after five games, I\u2019m not able to do that. So, always I wait for 10, 15 games to know exactly what is going on. ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guardiola expects Arsenal and Liverpool to drop few points and warned City must remain close. Still.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,238,172],"tags":[1162,1047,1089],"class_list":["post-4047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-champions-league","tag-chelsea-struggles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}