Manchester City will try to keep their Premier League title hopes alive when they visit a resurgent Liverpool in the late afternoon kickoff at Anfield today.
Pep Guardiola’s City squad (14-5-5, 47 points) enter the weekend in second place, nine points behind Arsenal, who last night won 3-0 against Sunderland.
And the Cityzens will be looking to snap a three-match winless league run away from home, with their last league road win coming in late December.
Most recently, they gave away a two-goal advantage in a 2-2 draw at Tottenham Hotspur. Before that came a 2-0 loss in the Manchester derby and a scoreless draw at Sunderland.
City’s form has been much better at home, where they most recently thumped Newcastle United 3-1 on Wednesday in the second leg of their comfortable Carabao Cup semifinal aggregate victory.
The last two games, we’ve been really good in both boxes, and then people start to notice that our football might be better as well
— Pep Guardiola
But no matter the venue, Guardiola admits his players haven’t been consistently in the form he would like. “Not yet. At top, top level, high, high level? No,” he said.
“We have moments, real moments, not enough consistency to be there, but we still are there. So 14 [remaining] games in the Premier League is an eternity from my experience; it’s a lot and everything can happen.”
Guardiola suggested Erling Haaland — who again leads the Premier League in scoring with 20 goals so far — will be available after a minor injury limited him to an appearance off the bench against Newcastle. However, it’s unclear if the Norwegian star will start the match.
Sixth-place Liverpool (11-7-6, 39 points) are likely beyond contending to repeat as league champions, but they are now within two points of the Uefa Champions League places after a run of only one loss in 12 league matches (5-1-6).
The Reds have had a full week to prepare for City following one of their most decisive league performances of the season, a 4-1 thrashing of visiting Newcastle United last Saturday.
Hugo Ekitike registered a brace to bring his total to 10 goals in his first Premier League season. And Liverpool continued showing the decisive finishing form they displayed in a 6-0 Champions League win over Qarabag on January 28 that helped secure a third-place finish in that competition’s league phase.
“The last two games, we’ve been really good in both boxes, and then people start to notice that our football might be better as well,” Liverpool manager Arne Slot said.
“But that football part has always been for 95% of the minutes we played; for me, far above an acceptable level. But both boxes have not been good enough throughout maybe 95% of the time.
“Now in the last two games that was, and then all of a sudden there’s not only the performance, but the result looks different as well.” — Reuters
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