Pep Guardiola and Ilkay Gundogan agree on Man City and Liverpool title chances

Pep Guardiola said Manchester City did not need to lose to understand how difficult it will be to win the Premier League.

City's manager has insisted through the season that the title race was not over even when pundits were declaring them as winners and bookmakers were prematurely paying out.

Now, having lost 3-2 to Tottenham to suffer their first league defeat since October, City find themselves just six points ahead of Liverpool having played a game more.

Guardiola did not think his side played badly but the defeat entrenched his view that Jurgen Klopp's team will push them all the way.

"It's difficult when they defend so deep. We had the chances to arrive and score. Unfortunately we cannot score," he told Sky Sports.

"They are clinical. They have Kane and Son and Kulusevski. Their crosses we could not defend. We didn't have the momentum.

"We didn't need to lose a game already to know how hard it is [to win the league]. There are many, many games still to play."

City inflicted Liverpool's only defeat of the 2018/19 season in a result that ultimately meant the title stayed at the Etihad rather than heading to Anfield, and their home game with the Merseyside club on April 9 is getting more important by the week.

Liverpool know that the title race is in their hands if they beat the Blues, but City are happy to be hosting their title rivals.

“It’s not a situation that we’re not used to. We know from recent years that Liverpool are always contenders," midfielder Ilkay Gundogan told BBC.

"They’re always up there. We know they’ll try everything to make our lives as difficult as possible. The good thing is that they still need to come here to the Etihad, but there are still many games to go.”