Carlos Tevez golf heroics prove Pep Guardiola is right not to believe Jurgen Klopp's title claim

Title race done? For a few weeks now, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has been having absolutely none of that talk.

“Just I don’t believe him,” a grinning Guardiola replied on Friday when Jurgen Klopp’s assertion that he was “not sure” whether Liverpool could challenge City from a position of nine points behind with a game in hand.

“Absolutely [it’s possible] and he thinks the same, otherwise he wouldn’t be the competitor that he is. Of course he believes.

“In football, everything can happen. He knows that he has to win a lot of games like we know we have to win a lot of games to fight to be champion again.”

City’s Saturday engagement in the Premier League underlines Guardiola’s point.

They will take on Norwich City and return to a venue where, 10 years ago, they changed they completely changed the mood music around a titanic title battle.

We all know the well-worn story of the 2011/12 race for Premier League glory by now. On Easter Sunday, a listless City lost 1-0 at Arsenal to fall eight points behind Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United with six games to play.

From that point they hauled their rivals in and Sergio Aguero did his thing at the death.

When you study the flawless final stretch put together by Roberto Mancini’s team, certain moments stand out. The final day mayhem is in a category of its own, but beating United in a suffocating high-stakes Manchester derby before holding their nerve to see off Champions League-chasing Newcastle showed City had the steely constitution of champions.

That looked to be anything other than the case when they shambled through spring and even the 4-0 win over West Brom in the midweek after losing to Arsenal felt a little futile until news reached the Etihad Stadium that