Pep Guardiola recognised the significance of Manchester City’s 1-0 victory over Chelsea but reiterated the Premier League title could not be won in January.
Kevin De Bruyne struck his fifth goal against former club Chelsea with 20 minutes remaining at the Etihad to earn champions City a hard-fought victory over the European champions which saw them take another crucial step towards retaining their crown.
De Bruyne’s special strike sealed a 12th consecutive Premier League victory for City and helped open up a 13-point gap between themselves and Chelsea but Guardiola insisted the title was far from won, with third-place Liverpool able to reduce their lead to eight points if they win their two games in hand.
“Important victory because we’re playing against a big contender,” the City boss said. “When you get three points, they can’t get three points and it’s one week less.
“But in January no one is champion. We can think about Chelsea, and Liverpool have games in hand. If they win it will be eight points and eight points in January is nothing.
“I want to win games if we deserve it, and we deserved it. I like football to be fair so, while I was happy to win against Arsenal, we didn’t deserve it. Winning when deserving feels better.”
Asked whether he was confident complacency would not seep into his Manchester City squad, Guardiola added: “I know them. We have been together for six seasons and most of the guys know how to celebrate the good moments and suffer in the bad ones, how to behave after all the games.
“They are going to hear people saying things that are not true, that it is over, but they know it is not over. Hats off – 12 wins, 36 points, but in January it is impossible it is over.”
Pep wants more from world-class De Bruyne
Guardiola challenged match-winner De Bruyne to harness his world-class talent to continue to propel City to success after flooring former club Chelsea.
“He has been with me here from day one,” Guardiola told BT Sport. “Everything we have won we have won together. I am going to push him to keep on doing more and more.
“He’s a world-class player who has humility and is humble, it is not easy to find that. He was Player of the Year in this country. He won the team three Premier League and a lot of prizes and still has this [performance] to give. But I want more, I want more because I know he can do it.
“Today, the action he has done, I am so satisfied for him. He has everything. He missed a bit of confidence this season, he was struggling a little bit, but he knows what he can do. He has incredible love from all of us, for being who he is. His mum and dad have to be so proud.”
De Bruyne the difference as Chelsea fire blank
In the same period in which City have notched up a dozen Premier League wins on the spin, Chelsea have registered just four league wins as their title challenge has fallen away.
Nothing other than a victory at the Etihad Stadium would have realistically kept their title hopes alive, but those hopes were extinguished by a toothless attacking display, which bore the brunt of Thomas Tuchel post-match criticisms.
“In terms of attitude, commitment and defensive-wise I am happy, we did not allow too many big chances, we kept them to a minimum of big chances,” the Chelsea boss said.
“But our offensive players need to show up more. We need consistency. We could have had much more chances if we played with better timing, better precision.
“That you miss chances, there is no problem in that, but we could have had much more chances. That’s what I’m critical about. The ball losses were too early and too poor and the decision-making was not on the level we need.
“The individual quality of Kevin De Bruyne made the difference today but we struggled to show the quality to really hurt them and score the first goal and bring some doubts into their game.”
Tuchel needs more from Lukaku and co
Asked whether club-record signing Romelu Lukaku got enough service at the Etihad, Tuchel replied: “Sometimes he needs to do the service. He’s included, he had many ball losses without any pressure and in very promising circumstances. He had a huge chance.
“He is included, we want to serve him, but he is part of the team. The performance up front, we can do much, much better and we need to do better.”
