Pep Guardiola Reveals How He Is Dealing With the Mental Challenge of Chasing Liverpool in Title Race

Pep Guardiola has revealed that he has told his players to do their best to ignore everything Liverpool do in the Premier League title race, urging them not to fixate on fixtures where the Reds could theoretically drop points. 

City moved back to four points behind the leaders with a comfortable win over Wolves on Monday night at the Etihad, but Jurgen Klopp's side have shown startling consistency to lose just once in the league all season - 2-1 to City themselves earlier this month.

Asked after Monday's win how many points he expected would be needed to clinch the title, Guardiola replied: “I don’t have a magician’s ball to discover how many. I said to them [players] don’t look at the schedule, don’t look at the calendar for the Liverpool games. Forget about it, [otherwise] normally when this happens in my experience you then lose your own games. 

And then it’s over. All we can do is win our games and be there and maybe one day they [Liverpool] fail; but if we don’t win, they will be champions. The best way is to look at the next game – [at] Huddersfield [on Sunday], who have a new manager. If Liverpool win the title, then I am sure I will congratulate Jürgen because it will be well deserved.”

A first half brace from Gabriel Jesus, the goals coming either side of a red card for Willy Boly, saw City control Monday night's game without ever having to progress through the gears - before a late own goal by Conor Coady sealed the easiest of 3-0 wins.