Pep Guardiola aware Arsenal will have upper hand if Man City lose at Chelsea
Pep Guardiola has told his Manchester City players they need to win at Chelsea. Pic: Ben Whitley/PA
Pep Guardiola believes Manchester City’s crunch clash with Arsenal next week will be irrelevant if they fail to beat Chelsea on Sunday.
City’s title fate is back in their own hands after the Premier League-leading Gunners suffered a shock loss to Bournemouth on Saturday.
Mikel Arteta’s side still hold a nine-point advantage, but with two games in hand and an opportunity to take points off Arsenal themselves, City do have a route to pull level.
Even so, the first of those additional games is a testing trip to Chelsea and Guardiola knows they must make it count.
The City manager said: “Talking about Arsenal, if you don’t win at Stamford Bridge – that’s not an easy place to go – maybe we don’t need to make the press conference before Arsenal because it’ll be over.
“Everybody knows it. You know it, I know it, the players know it, everybody knows it. England knows it.”
City have eight games remaining and Guardiola believes City will need a perfect run-in to take the crown.
He said: “So, there’s how many games left? You have to win all of them, all. Not one draw, no. Forget about it.”
Having won six Premier League titles under Guardiola’s near 10-year tenure, City typically finish strongly.
Guardiola said he would “completely agree” with suggestions City would appear to have an aura about them that could affect rivals.
“Because now we are not seventh or eighth in the Premier League, we are second and fighting,” he said. “It’s not a bad season.”
However, he feels it is City’s experience in such situations that matters much more than how opponents perceive them – although he acknowledges the team have not always turned control into results this season.
He said: “The aura doesn’t make you feel wins. For most of the players, not now but in recent past, it’s just, ‘OK, we have done it many times, we can do it again’.
“But that doesn’t define a season in the Premier League. The season in the Premier League is 11 months and in the 11 months, there were a lot of games that we were good, but not good enough to win.”
To underline City’s strength in the closing stages, they have won 28 of their last 31 games in the month of April.
Guardiola said: “When the sun is out in spring time, our souls rise and we feel better. That’s why we win games. That is the reason why this season we were not good, because the weather was not good!”
Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma also recognises the importance of victory this weekend.
The Italian said: “It will be a difficult game because going there to play is never easy. We hope to get a great result because it’s very important for us for the title race.”
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