Pep Guardiola delivered a clear message to Premier League rivals after Sunday\u2019s victory over Liverpool, insisting Manchester City have regained the form that underpinned their run of four straight titles between 2021 and 2024. City have lost just once in their last 14 games across all competitions, a sequence that Guardiola says demonstrates a return of energy within the squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have the feeling the energy [is] back,\u201d Guardiola confessed as he celebrated his 1,000th game in management. \u201cWe are more unpredictable in the way we attack and defend and that is good that the opponents don\u2019t know what we are going to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast season it didn\u2019t happen, we didn\u2019t handle it well because apparently we didn\u2019t have another target to fight. Nobody had done four titles in a row and we did it and we thought, \u2018What\u2019s next?’<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the four Premier Leagues in a row affected us in a really bad way. It can be understandable a little bit. We tried to push each other but we were not able to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the Club World Cup, I felt something different in general. It\u2019s nice to still have the feeling that we are back in terms of many things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arsenal remain in a comfortable position atop the standings, but pundit Gary Neville suggested City can maintain pressure for the rest of the season and warned the champions are beginning to look unpredictably dangerous.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would come into [City] games knowing the outcome, but now when you watch City you\u2019re not quite sure what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d he told The Gary Neville Podcast. \u201cThey are imperfect. They are a lot more physical… they\u2019re very different in terms of not being as methodical, not as good at playing out from the back, but they are still a very good side.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf City can keep some momentum going, they\u2019re going to be really, really dangerous towards the end of the season because of their experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cPep Guardiola will be thinking, \u2018Come on, let me hang on Mikel Arteta\u2019s shoulder until March, let me be close enough to him to apply that pressure.\u2019 He\u2019s the one you wouldn\u2019t want near you.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be really interesting what happens with City. I would say that they\u2019ve still got to convince me that they\u2019re going to win a title\u2014Arsenal are the better team\u2014but they\u2019re the one team and the one manager I wouldn\u2019t want on your shoulder going down the back straight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neville also refused to rule Liverpool out of a late challenge. \u201cIf it clicked, something could happen,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they can pull it together with the manager who had a great first season and get something going with the younger players, maybe they can still do something.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut today was a worry because it was a really, really poor performance. They need to have a good look at themselves and they\u2019ll know they\u2019re nowhere near it at this moment in time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guardiola says City’s energy is back after Liverpool win; Neville warns momentum may decide title. .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,238,172],"tags":[1081,1162],"class_list":["post-4398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-adaptation","tag-analytics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4398","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=4398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}