Manchester City Manager Pep Guardiola has said that his team still has a long way to get back to its best form as long as some of its key players are still injured.
Guardiola made these remarks while addressing the press in Manchester on Tuesday, November 3, 2024, in an exclusive interview with a sports journalist about his future at Manchester City after his team lost to Liverpool 2-0 in the weekend clash.
“We will be back when all the players come back. We will not be back by winning at Anfield. Until those players come back, we will not be back. I’m sorry to say that,” Guardiola said.
However, Guardiola believes that all hope is not lost and when the team gets its players back they can still compete though winning titles will be hard when you don’t have your best players.
“We were many, many times behind Liverpool in the years we won the Premier League. Against Arsenal, we were always behind and not quite different from now. The problem is we had the squad, we had everyone more or less competing with each other. Now we don’t have it,” Guardiola noted.
Man City who have only one point in the last seven games have had the worst run under Guardiola as he is missing his star players as the ballon dor winner and playmaker Rodri, John Stones, Mateo Kovacic, and attacking player Oscar Bobb.
Former Liverpool player Micheal Owen believes that with Manchester City trailing table leaders Liverpool by over 11 points they don’t stand a chance to compete for the premier league title with Liverpool but rather Arsenal.
“I just don’t think Man City are capable of winning too many games on the spin to catch them. I think Arsenal are Liverpool’s biggest danger now. City have got a lot of injuries and are lacking confidence,” Owen said.
Mancity will return into action on Wednesday as they play Nottingham Forest in the English premier league. With Forest being only one point behind the champions they hope to take advantage of the poor form and injuries of Mancity to collect all the three points and go two points ahead of the last season premier league champions who are currently sitting in 5th Place.
