Pep Guardiola’s second-place Manchester City will look for an important victory in the 1,000th match of his managerial career when a resurgent Liverpool side visits on Sunday.
Guardiola previously led Barcelona and Bayern Munich to three domestic titles apiece. But the Spaniard who also was a Barca player says it’s City — where he’s won six league titles and one UEFA Champions League crown — that has defined his coaching career.
And he sees plenty of poetry to facing the Reds, who have provided the most consistent challenge in England, in the benchmark match.
“I have been here longer than ever in this country, the impact it’s had on my life,” Guardiola said Friday. “Barcelona is my club and Bayern was incredible as well but Liverpool have been the biggest rival in this country and especially Jurgen (Klopp), it could not be better. The destiny and universe has decided for this.”
Guardiola also can relate to Liverpool’s recent skid.
A year ago, it was City who went into a stunning swoon during November and December, losing four in a row and six out of eight across all competitions to open the door for Liverpool to win their 20th league title.
Now it’s City (6-3-1, 19 points) who have won six of seven in all competitions, with Erling Haaland scoring 18 goals in total and 13 in the league.
And it’s the Reds (6-4-0, 18 points) who had lost four in a row and six of seven across all competitions to open the door for Arsenal to take command in the title race. Arsenal are six points above City and seven in front of Liverpool and two others.
Liverpool arrested that slide last week with a pair of home wins, a 2-0 league victory over Aston Villa followed by a 1-0 Champions League triumph against Real Madrid.
But there’s a sense manager Arne Slot’s squad still is operating beneath its potential.
Alexander Isak still hasn’t scored in the league since Liverpool paid Newcastle a British-record fee for his services at the end of the primary transfer window. Mo Salah — who scored against Villa — leads Liverpool again with four Premier League goals, a respectable tally but far behind last year’s pace.
In that context, Slot says it’s too early to think about Sunday as pivotal to any title aims.
“I only focus on ourselves, and our main focus is on consistency at the moment,” he said. “We’ve lost a few games, much more than we usually do, and now we’ve won two so our focus is on getting consistent and improving, improving, getting players fit and then we will see where that will lead to. But at this moment of time, it’s definitely not the only focus we have.”
–Field Level Media
