Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is ready for the challenge as he takes his team to Liverpool for a crucial Premier League title showdown on Sunday. The winner, should there be one, will go top of the table.
Man City heads to Merseyside trailing Jurgen Klopp’s side by a point for a match of huge significance at the top of the table. Guardiola’s team goes into the game as favorite to win the title for what would be a fourth successive season, and a sixth time in seven years, but its record at Anfield is poor.
City has won just once there in front of a crowd since 1981, and that was as long ago as 2003. It did pull off a convincing 4-1 win three years ago but that was behind closed doors, pointing to the importance of the famous Anfield atmosphere.
But Guardiola did not fully endorse this logic. “It’s the quality of their team,” he explained, via the Liverpool ECHO, when asked why City has struggled to win at the ground. “The crowd too, of course, but especially the quality of the team. I think it will be nice because it always has been and we accept the challenge.”
Guardiola has tried to play down some of the hype surrounding the fixture. In particular, he opted not to get drawn into the war of words that has broken out between some of the players in the build-up.
Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold this week claimed winning trophies means more to his club. Man City’s Erling Haaland and Rúben Dias responded by pointing out he could not know how it feels to win the treble.
Ahead of the Champions League match against FC Copenhagen last week, Guardiola, Manchester City’s manager, made quite a few lineup changes. His decision-making seemed to hint at his attention being swayed towards Anfield.
However, Guardiola has said that he didn’t shift his focus to Liverpool until after the Copenhagen match had been wrapped up successfully. He shared, “Knowing we had three days until Sunday, we had time. I enjoyed the qualification for the Champions League and Thursday morning I started to think about Liverpool.”
He further expressed how Liverpool’s attacking format has slightly changed from previous seasons along with new players bringing a different quality to the game. He said, “We saw some details and the shape they attack is a little bit different from previous seasons, and the quality of some players and new players makes the game a little bit different.”
Nevertheless, Guardiola feels both teams understand each other’s game style quite well. He added, “But the main patterns are the same. We know it quite well and I think they know us.”
On the line-up front, Man City looks set to be without Jack Grealish due to a groin injury. Jérémy Doku may be considered based on his recovery following the Copenhagen game.
That said, he’s clearly right that quality is the number one factor. Liverpool has had to be extremely good to go toe-to-toe with Manchester City over the years — but that one anomaly of the pandemic game at Anfield does speak volumes about the intangible boost from the crowd.