Guardiola: Title race not over but Man City need Haaland’s goals

LONDON — Pep Guardiola told Arsenal that the Premier League title race is “not over” despite his Manchester City team falling nine points behind the Gunners after a 1-1 draw away to relegation-threatened West Ham.

Arsenal’s 2-0 win against Everton at the Emirates earlier on Saturday had moved Mikel Arteta’s team 10 points clear of City at the top of table, albeit having played two more games than Guardiola’s side.

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But with City needing to win at the London Stadium to keep the pressure on Arsenal, they slumped to a second successive league draw following their 2-2 stalemate at home to Nottingham Forest earlier this month.

City still have a game in hand on Arsenal and are due to play them at the Etihad next month, so Guardiola insisted that the title can still be won.

“It’s not over,” Guardiola said. “We didn’t lose. It’s not over. We will continue.

“It’s so difficult but we have a game in hand and this game at home against Arsenal. I’m not saying it will be easy to beat them but there is hope. Always, you have to be there.

“I don’t know how they [Arsenal] are playing because I didn’t see the last games but I have a few things that I like. It could be better, but it is what it is.

“Nine points is a lot against Arsenal but we have to try until the end. When it is not possible, then we congratulate the champion, but we have to try.”

City’s season is on the brink of crumbling due to Arsenal’s growing lead and a 3-0 first-leg deficit in their Champions League round of 16 tie against Real Madrid.

And Guardiola said that is partly down to his team not taking enough of their chances, including striker Erling Haaland who has netted just three goals in his last 12 league games.

“Erling knows we need his goals,” Guardiola said. “We need to create more chances for him too, but he had three to four good chances early in the first half and didn’t score.

“But it’s not just about him. It’s about all the players, the vibes they feel. But he will be back. Erling will be back and maybe soon too.

“We are an incredible team. We play so good. The guys go and go until we can’t continue.

“We didn’t score enough goals when we had the quality to score and they [West Ham] punished us.”

“To win the Premier League you need to be more consistent. In the past we had the consistency to win and win and win, to always find a way. In the past, we always found a way to win this type of game.

“This season, not scoring goals for the amount of chances we’ve created, we’ve been punished. We didn’t score enough goals. It happened a thousand million times for this team in the last decade, but this season we struggled.

“Now we will rest and prepare for Madrid [second leg on Tuesday] and give everything.”