Premier League title race 'definitely' not over, Guardiola tells Mourinho

Dom Farrell

Premier League title race 'definitely' not over, Guardiola tells Mourinho image

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has refuted Jose Mourinho's claim that the rest of the Premier League are playing for second place this season.

Guardiola's men cruised to a 3-0 win over West Brom on Wednesday, while Manchester United's 2-0 loss at Tottenham left City with a dominant 15-point advantage at the summit.

Mourinho told a news conference ahead of United's game versus Huddersfield Town that, with 13 games remaining, his team must now aim to be "the first of the last, we have to try to finish second".

City travel to Burnley in Saturday's early kick off and, not for the first time in his career, Guardiola disagreed with his old Clasico rival.

"There are 13 games, 39 points to play for. We have 15 more, so it is not over," he told reporters.

"We have amazing tough games left to play. For example, tomorrow. You cannot deny and everyone knows here in England how complicated it is playing at Burnley.

"After that we have to go to Stoke City, Goodison Park. We have to play United, Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea. Definitely, it is not over."

And Guardiola thinks there are few tougher assignments in English football than a trip to Turf Moor, despite having put seven goals past Sean Dyche's team over the course of meetings in the Premier League and FA Cup this season.

"We made a good performance against them in the Premier League and the FA Cup but it is completely different to play them at the Etihad Stadium," he said.

"Last season we won [at Burnley] but it was one of the toughest games we played last season.

"It will be tough. We have to avoid fouls, control the second balls and long balls to [Ashley] Barnes and [Sam] Vokes.

"They are masters, maybe one of the best teams in the Premier League in this style. The way they play in that system they create a lot of problems and put on a lot of pressure.

"From free-kicks and the corners they are so good. We have to avoid this kind of game as much as possible and do our game to make another step in the title race."

Guardiola will assess the fitness of David Silva after he hobbled out of the West Brom game with a blow to the hip.

Long-term absentee Benjamin Mendy could return to training with his team-mates in March following cruciate knee ligament surgery and was retained in City's Champions League squad on Friday.

Record signing Aymeric Laporte was added to the 21-man list along with youngster Oleksandr Zinchenko, who has deputised effectively for Mendy and fellow knee injury absentee Fabian Delph at left-back over recent weeks.

Dom Farrell

Dom Farrell Photo

Dom is the senior content producer for Sporting News UK. He previously worked as fan brands editor for Manchester City at Reach Plc. Prior to that, he built more than a decade of experience in the sports journalism industry, primarily for the Stats Perform and Press Association news agencies. Dom has covered major football events on location, including the entirety of Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup in Paris and St Petersburg respectively, along with numerous high-profile Premier League, Champions League and England international matches. Cricket and boxing are his other major sporting passions and he has covered the likes of Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury, Wladimir Klitschko, Gennadiy Golovkin and Vasyl Lomachenko live from ringside.