Guardiola dismisses Klopp claim of Man City having 'no weaknesses'

The Catalan coach claims the assessment of his side from a fellow Premier League title-chasing manager at Liverpool is wide of the mark

Pep Guardiola has rejected Jurgen Klopp’s observation that his Manchester City side are showing “no sign of weakness” in the Premier League title race.

Klopp’s Liverpool remain unbeaten in England’s top flight this season and lead City by a point at the summit ahead of Friday’s trip to face Wolves at Molineux.

It means City could be facing a deficit of four points by the time they kick-off against Crystal Palace on Saturday.

The top two will conclude their festive schedule with a blockbuster clash at the Etihad Stadium on January 3 and Guardiola, whose team have now gone seven games without a clean sheet in all competitions, feels he has plenty to be working on before a potentially defining game.

“Any team has strong points and weak points,” he told a pre-match news conference.

“Of course, we have weaknesses and we are working on it. Of course we have. But that’s normal

“These kind of comments I put in the perspective that there must be [weaknesses].”

City will again be without experienced duo David Silva and Vincent Kompany against Palace, although they are progressing well in their recoveries from hamstring strains.

“[Silva] started to train. He had the first steps but still he is not ready for tomorrow,” Guardiola said.

“I don’t know if he will be ready for the Christmas period.

“Vincent is better but for tomorrow he is not able.”

City had an 18-match winning run in the Premier League ended by a 0-0 draw at Palace on New Year’s Eve last season.

Even though that streak featured an earlier 5-0 win over the Eagles, Guardiola was wary when considering Roy Hodgson’s latest visit to Manchester.

“When you see [Wilfried] Zaha, [Andros] Townsend, [Max] Meyer, [James] McArthur, [Luka] Milivojevic, all the players have quality,” he added.

“He is an experienced manager. The movements in a 4-4-2 and a 4-5-1 are perfect. It is so difficult to attack them.

“Maybe the people expect better results than they get so far. They are one of the teams who create more chances.

“It’s complicated and tomorrow it is going to happen like this [in complicated fashion] if we are not completely focused.”

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