Pep Guardiola says his Manchester City team may need 96 points to win the league ahead of Liverpool
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Updated 11/02/2022 at 18:16 GMT
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola says his team may need as many as 96 points to win the Premier League given how strong Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool are looking behind them. Guardiola said the current nine-point gap between the sides is "nothing" and that even though they have won 13 of their last 14 games, they haven't burned off the challenge of their great rivals.
Guardiola - We'll have to finish with 95 or more points to be champions
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola believes his team will need to once again rack up close to 100 points if they want to seal a fourth Premier League crown in five years.
Guardiola took his side to a landmark total of 100 points as they won the title in 2017/18, before finishing with 98 in 2018/19 as they took back-to-back wins.
Liverpool hit back to claim the league in 2019/20 with 99 points as the two clubs set new benchmarks at the top of the division.
2020/21 saw the Reds' challenge fade away largely due to a raft of injuries to key players, but with the two clubs once again operating close to full strength, taking home the 2021/22 trophy could require another mammoth haul.
"The [nine-point] margin with Liverpool is nothing. It's nothing," Guardiola said in his press conference prior to his side travelling to Norwich on Saturday evening.
"We have to win a lot, a lot of games. More than 90 points – 95 or 96 to be champion, I'm pretty sure of that right now.
"We've made an incredible run – 13 victories in 14 games – and our opponent, Liverpool, is there round the corner. That shows how difficult it is.
"These players have shown they are not scared to face every game with optimism but knowing that we can lose and drop points.
"It's not about mentality, because the players show in the last years it's not about fear, it's to face every game with optimism and being positive but knowing we can lose and be bad and drop points.
"We can lose, it's the way you lose. You lose in different ways. Many times we lose, we lose as a collective. Of course you can lose, nobody wins always.
"[What's] important is to be there knowing if we want to fight to win the Premier League we have to win an incredible amount of points against this opponent we faced many times in the last seasons."
Following his side's 2-0 win over Leicester City on Thursday night that saw them keep the pace with City, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said he didn't think City "could smell our breath yet" given the nine-point gap. But he said his team would "just try to win football matches" in the event that City let them back in.
Guardiola has the in-form Riyad Mahrez to count on for the run-in - the Algerian has scored eight goals in his last eight games - but perhaps surprisingly the City boss said it wasn't the best version of the 30-year-old he had seen.
"[Key to his number of goals is] the quality of the finishing, the personality of the penalties.
"When he's close in the box it's his ability, his technique because he's not so strong so he needs the speed. He has this quality.
"Last season was the best moment I found Riyad. He can do better this season to reach the level [he had in the] last four, five, six months of last season. It was outstanding the way he played and produced. He can do that."
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