Although Pep Guardiola has often had a healthy, competitive respect for Liverpool in recent years, it’d be stretching to say that the two parties have been the best of friends.
The Reds and Manchester City have developed a compelling and at times fierce rivalry over the past decade as by and large the two outstanding teams in England, taking a couple of epic Premier League title races to the final day while also regularly doing battle in knockout tournaments.
That LFC have won only top-flight crown in that time (another is on its way!) while the club from down the M62 have hoovered up six in seven years under the Spaniard has been tough for Kopites to take, especially with their rivals still awaiting the verdict of 115 charges of breaching financial fair play regulations.
However, Liverpool fans will have been saluting in agreement with one comment made by Guardiola after Man City’s last-gasp win over Aston Villa on Tuesday night.
Speaking to Sky Sports on Tuesday night after Matheus Nunes’ stoppage-time winner boosted the Cityzens’ prospects of Champions League qualification, their manager said: “What makes you feel good is the Premier League. It happened and sometimes you have bad seasons. Liverpool will be champions and the level of teams is outstanding.”
Guardiola is quite right about the quality of the Premier League
Having won the English top flight six times – and been pushed to the final day in half of those triumphs – few are more qualified than Guardiola to speak with authority on the quality of the Premier League.
Some bitter and jealous pundits have tried to dismiss Liverpool’s impending title success (with a double-digit lead and multiple games to spare) as a default result of their competitors declining from last season, but such complaints are borne out of pure spite.
Four of the 12 semi-finalists remaining in European competitions are from England, the only nation which could still produce winners in all three tournaments, and Aston Villa were narrowly eclipsed by an excellent Paris Saint-Germain side in the last eight of the Champions League.
Despite what some observers have tried to peddle, the overall quality of the Premier League is in a healthy state (barring the worrying gap between establish top-flight sides and those who come up from the Championship), and the Reds must be doing plenty right to hold a 13-point lead in the division.
Having seen his Man City side – champions of the past four years – being outclassed by Liverpool twice this season, Guardiola knows that Arne Slot is in charge of a formidable team who’ve been a cut above everyone else in what we’re so often told is the foremost domestic league in world football.
