Erling Haaland
Pep Guardiola said the Premier League title race has finally swung Manchester City’s way after they thrashed Arsenal 4-1.
Guardiola insisted for weeks that Arsenal are favourites, but after moving to within two points of Mikel Arteta’s side with two games in hand, he changed course and said City are now in pole position to win a fifth title in six years.
Arsenal still top the table, but asked whose position he would rather be in, Guardiola said: “Absolutely my position now, because it’s in our hands. We have to win the games in hand, but it depends on us. Until today, I preferred Arsenal’s position.
“The next three games are really important. Fulham on Sunday, then two games at home. These three games will dictate if we do what we have to do. It sounds naive, but we are behind Arsenal, they are two points in front of us.”
City crushed Arsenal thanks to two goals from Kevin De Bruyne and one each from John Stones and Erling Haaland. The prolific Norway striker also set up both De Bruyne goals and afterwards Guardiola said the pair of City attackers had decided the game.
“The game belongs to them,” Guardiola said. “I didn’t teach them how they find each other in training. Footballers are more natural than you expect. Erling knows when Kevin has the ball. Kevin is a master of the assist with or without Erling. Erling scores goals all the time with or without Kevin. But together, with space behind, they are so dangerous.”
Despite the lopsided scoreline, Arteta refused to concede defeat in the title race, but he admitted Arsenal may have to win all five remaining games to have a chance of finishing above City.
“It is a very difficult night after the way we lost, but we have to stand up, look at the bigger picture and the fact we are competing toe-to-toe with this team and that is incredible to be fair,” Arteta said. “We want to compete, we are not going to give up, it is five games and in this league anything can happen.
“We were beaten by the better team, that is for sure. They were exceptional and when that is the case it is extremely difficult. You have to start, first of all, by competing. We were punished and we could have been even more punished.”