Manchester City's Pep Guardiola shrugs off title speculation, calls for more consistency

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said it does not help to pay attention to title race speculation before every game, and he focuses entirely on beating his next opponents.

Second-placed City have been chasing Premier League leaders Arsenal's for months, and Sunday's 2-1 win at Liverpool kept them within six points of the top of the table.

"Every time over the past weeks and months when I go before the game for an interview, (it's) always if you lose you are losing everything and are going to disappear from the planet earth and stuff," Guardiola told reporters on Tuesday, a day before City host Fulham.

"So what I am saying is what do you have to do to beat Fulham?"

City, seeking their seventh English top-flight title in Guardiola's decade-long tenure, have won only two of their last seven league games, allowing Arsenal to pull further ahead with four wins in the same period.

"The distance is not huge but considering how Arsenal is doing, six points is a lot. Next game against a team like (Fulham) who every year is better and better, so we'll see," Guardiola said.

City had to dig deep to snatch a 5-4 win at Fulham in December, and Guardiola praised the way the London side have improved under Marco Silva since earning their promotion to the Premier League in 2022.

"The movements they do... they're really good. The patterns and the quality they have, the composure of the play, the speed they have. Marco is one of the top, top, top managers I face. Destined to be one of the top in a few years for sure," Guardiola said.

CITY NEED TO BE MORE CONSISTENT, GUARDIOLA SAYS Defensive midfielder John Stones, sidelined since the trip to Fulham due to a thigh injury, is back in the squad, Guardiola said, adding that defender Abdukodir Khusanov was also fit despite suffering a concussion at Liverpool.

"I admit (Khusanov) doesn't speak like William Shakespeare but he is getting better and getting better... he is so intelligent. He always takes good decisions," the manager said about the Uzbekistan international.

Guardiola said City needed to focus on improving their consistency.

"We have done really good things. I have had the feeling for many, many months but we are not consistent enough," he added.

"It will happen if we do what we need to do. I want to deserve the three points. I want us to play the way we have to play to stay there."

(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)