Pep Guardiola has namechecked Liverpool again but Man City 'crisis' warning is nonsense

It’s no secret that Liverpool and Manchester City have driven each other to new levels over the years. Both Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp would admit that and even if they did not, the Reds’ repeated forays well beyond 90 points without reward would be more than sufficient evidence.

Seizing on a period of slight transition for both sides, Arsenal has now muscled in as well, and claimed top spot at Christmas after holding on for a draw at Anfield. Manchester City will be particularly grateful for that result, with the gap at the top not growing too significantly during its absence at the Club World Cup with Liverpool only managing a draw against Manchester United prior to that, too.

Triumph out of adversity is an age-old theme, even if Manchester City’s success doesn’t make for the most uplifting of Hollywood scripts. But Guardiola is inadvertently underlining the stark difference to his teams of old, the setbacks he reeled off were one-off fixtures, which the manager was able to make sure did not happen in the same way again.

Much as he may want to, he cannot attribute the recent unwanted records about winless streaks and losing runs to bad luck and randomness alone. Rarely if ever have results been so consistently lacking, and try as he might, Guardiola cannot completely divorce that from performance levels. Something has obviously deteriorated.

The pressure from Manchester City in the rest of the way

But for all that, his ‘doubt us again’ warning is pointless anyway. Despite everything, Liverpool will be operating on the assumption that Manchester City will produce perfection from here nobody is writing off the team whose riches have effectively made it the default champion, no matter how much Guardiola may want to drum up an underdog narrative. His team may yet end up as Premier League and Champions League winners once again. But that doesn’t change the fact that right now, this is not the team it once was.