Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has vowed not to give up in his quest to turn round the club’s fortunes after a difficult run of results.
The champions have won once in their last 13 matches across all competitions, and only once in the past nine league encounters, which has left not only their title hopes, but even ambitions of a top-four finish in danger as they sit six points off fourth-placed Nottingham Forest.
But Guardiola, speaking ahead of his 500th match in charge of Man City at Leicester City, is determined to stick around and see through his worst run of form as a manager, returning the team to winning ways.
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“I will not give up,” said the Spaniard. “I want to be here. I want to do it and, with the situation that we have, we have to do it.
“I don’t want to disappoint my people in terms of the club, the fans, the people who love this club.
“The biggest test is to come back again, but we have done that before.”
| Position Pos | Club | Played Pl | GD | Points Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 |
Chelsea
CHE
|
29 | +16 | 49 |
| 5 |
Man City
MCI
|
29 | +15 | 48 |
| 6 |
Newcastle
NEW
|
28 | +9 | 47 |
| 7 |
Brighton
BHA
|
29 | +6 | 47 |
| 8 |
Fulham
FUL
|
29 | +5 | 45 |
| 9 |
Aston Villa
AVL
|
29 | -4 | 45 |
| 10 |
Bournemouth
BOU
|
29 | +12 | 44 |
Man City have been hit by an injury crisis, with the long-term absence of midfielder Rodri seen as the trigger to the poor form, but Guardiola was not willing to use this or the poor form of his players as an excuse.
“I don’t have it in my education to start complaining, to point at people,” Guardiola added. “It’s happened, it’s life, it’s football, so let’s try it again.
“That’s why we have had success – because always it is never enough, we will try it again and again and again. That’s why we won a lot of titles.
“Every three days it was a game and win, win, win for many, many months and years. Now we have to do the same when results are not good.
“Sometimes you have injuries. For how many years we were incredibly consistent but now, yes, we’re a little bit down and the main reason is having so many important players injured.
“But I saw the team spirit, how we trained this week, how focused they are, how they try to practice. We saw that [against Everton] but unfortunately, we couldn’t get the result we wanted.”
Reasons to be hopeful
A strong record against Sunday’s opponents Leicester may give Guardiola optimism.
The Foxes have lost 11 of their 13 meetings with City and haven’t kept a clean sheet in any of the last 15 matches against them.
And City have won their last four Premier League away games against Leicester without conceding a single goal.
