Kyle Walker vowed that Manchester City will deliver an improved performance against Liverpool as he admitted that the Reds will “walk over” City if the champions plays like they did during Sunday’s shocking 4-0 loss to Tottenham on Saturday.
City has now lost five games in a row — something that had not previously happened during Pep Guardiola’s managerial career — giving Liverpool the chance to open up a significant lead at the top of the table when the league leaders travel to Southampton on Sunday.
The Reds are heavy favorites to record another win at St. Mary’s, and a victory there would ensure City turns up at Anfield next weekend with an eight-point gap to close.
Walker admitted that things could get messy if City produces a repeat of the lifeless performance that Spurs fully capitalized on. “It [a trip to Liverpool] is a great game to turn it around, to take three points off a team that’s sat above you,” Walker told Sky Sports.
“But we can’t go out and do a performance like that, because we’re going to get walked over, so that’s down to each and every one of us at the club, from now until next Sunday. We’ve a game midweek in the Champions League [against Feyenoord] to prepare for this massive game on Sunday and make sure we can keep within touching distance of Liverpool.”
City hadn’t previously lost five games in a row since the 2005-06 season, when Stuart Pearce was the manager and Sheikh Mansour was a couple of years away from completing his takeover of the club, and Walker admitted the team’s confidence has been eroded by the succession of recent losses.
“We’ve lost confidence as a team because we haven’t won in a while,” Walker admitted. “What we’ve won in the past counts for nothing, and what it’s about is winning the Premier League now, and we’re making it harder for ourselves because we’ve got teams around us and one team that’s above us that’s doing really well. We’ll keep fighting to turn this around, and hopefully the mojo comes back and you see the normal City that you have done in the last eight seasons.”
