Table of Contents
- Pep Guardiola admits title race will be over if City fail to win at Stamford Bridge on Sunday
- City boss acknowledges Arsenal’s nine-point lead is ‘big’ despite Saturday’s loss to Bournemouth
- Guardiola says City’s famous winning ‘aura’ counts for nothing unless backed up on the pitch
Pep Guardiola has admitted that Sunday’s Premier League clash with Chelsea is a must-win if Manchester City want to catch Arsenal in the title race.
The Gunners suffered a shock 2-1 home defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday, handing City an opportunity to cut the gap at the top of the table.
However, the nine-point deficit that separates the two clubs – with Arsenal also holding a game in hand – means Guardiola is under no illusions about the scale of the task that remains, with the City manager knowing exactly where his side stand heading into one of the most pivotal weeks of their season.
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City arrive at Stamford Bridge on the back of their best run of form of the campaign, having beaten Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final and demolished Liverpool 4-0 in the FA Cup quarter-final in successive outings either side of the international break.
Assistant manager Pepijn Lijnders had already called on the squad to push Arsenal all the way as the Gunners showed signs of faltering – and Saturday’s result at the Emirates Stadium has only intensified the sense of possibility around Manchester City‘s run-in.
Guardiola: If we don’t win at Stamford Bridge, it will be over
Previewing this weekend’s clash in west London on Friday, Guardiola was honest about what Sunday’s result means for the title race – and made clear that no press conference before next week’s Arsenal clash would be necessary if City fail to pick up three points in west London.
“We don’t have to make… Listen, I’m not to confess something special to the fact that what we have to do to be, until the last games of the season, Aston Villa or Brentford before, or Crystal Palace, to try to fight for the league,” he said in a press conference on Friday.
“Talking about Arsenal? If you don’t win in Stamford Bridge, that is not an easy place to go, maybe you don’t need to make the press conference before Arsenal, because it will be over. Everybody knows it. You know it, I know it, the players know it, everybody knows it in England. There’s how many games left, you have to win all of them. It’s not one draw, no, forget about it.
“Nine points is a lot of points against that Arsenal. But if we win there (at Stamford Bridge), if we win against Arsenal at home, and of course, you always live the illusion. The wish is always there to try to do it but in reality, I’m not naive to say it’s going to happen.
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“With West Ham and Nottingham (Forest), we played to win both games, and we had points, of course we have a chance, because it was in our hands, it was Arsenal who had to come here (to the Etihad Stadium next weekend), but it’s what it is.
“At the end, it’s fair enough. The Premier League is the most difficult competition. For me, the most prestigious, it doesn’t matter – it’s the most difficult because it’s 11 months, 38 fixtures, every cup and many, many things. And that’s why I give a lot of credit when we won or the opponents won these titles.”
The gap to Arsenal is big, I cannot deny it: Guardiola
Pressed on whether he believes Cirty represent the last team Arsenal would want chasing them down the stretch, Guardiola refused to overstate his side’s chances while crediting the remarkable consistency shown by Mikel Arteta and co in the league since August 2025.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Guardiola added. “The gap is big. I cannot deny it. Nine points, one game in hand but you have to win this game in hand. So this thing is big.
“I think Nottingham Forest and West Ham punished us a lot, to not be, ‘Maybe we can do it again’. The gap is big. I’m saying now, not before the game against them (Arsenal) next week. Beating Arsenal once is… Imagine twice, and look again.
“In the Champions League, they (Arsenal) didn’t lose one game. They won all and drew one. Arguably the numbers and the way, the consistency, solid and everything, all the details, it’s top.”
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“Our aura doesn’t make us win, results on the pitch do”
On the subject of Manchester City’s famed winning aura under his stewardship – a period that has yielded six Premier League titles in nine seasons – Guardiola was equally measured.
“The aura is when you start on Sunday at 4:30pm, behaving like you have to behave,” the Manchester City manager said. “The aura doesn’t make you win, or make results.
“But most of the players, not now, but in the recent past, it’s just ‘Okay, we have done it many times, we can do it again’, and knowing exactly if there are 10, 15, 20 games left; okay, you have to win every single game.
“And we have done it in the past, so we can do it – or maybe we know exactly what we have to do to win it. But that doesn’t define the season in the Premier League. The season in the Premier League is 11 months. In the 11 months there are a lot of games that we were good but not good enough to win the games.
“Like in the past, we always found a way to win the games, playing really, really bad, but we had the way to win games. And this season we didn’t find it. In terms of points, we’re not comparing the season with Jurgen (Klopp), Liverpool (90 points) or Arsenal 90, 89, 80 (points). I don’t know, this season – we have not been the best.
“But I think I give the opinion, there are a lot of new things, a lot of new players, and this time give a lot of the players and personalities that we had in the past, that right now we are building on that in the future. We will be ready to be closer in terms of, or at least continue to fight for the Premier League.”
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Guardiola: The click should have come earlier
On whether something has finally clicked for City in recent weeks, Guardiola was characteristically self-critical while remaining defiant about what is still possible between now and the end of the season.
“The click should have been done earlier, right? We’d have had more chances,” the Catalan added. “Sometimes it’s later, it’s what it is. I said that we are able to do it. We are able to do it. But to win the title you have to do it every single three days, and the team still was not during this season.
“But still we are there. We have a semi-final FA Cup ahead of us to reach another final FA Cup and the Premier League, until it’s over, it’s not over. So we have to go there, do our performance.
“But we proved even in October (2025), in early moments and games like, wow. And after that we dropped. We are not being stable like Arsenal proved this season for many reasons. But it’s a good lesson and for the next season we’ll be better.”
City’s FA Cup semi-final against Southampton at Wembley lies just around the corner, with Guardiola’s side still very much in the hunt for a domestic treble.
However, the 55-year-old’s comments make clear that Sunday’s trip to Stamford Bridge carries consequences that extend well beyond the cup – and that in the Premier League at least, the margin for error has officially run out.
