Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has given his side a point target if they want to finish the Premier League campaign as champions ahead of Liverpool.
City were handed a surprise 3-2 defeat to Tottenham on Saturday as the league leaders fell for the first time in 14 games.
The loss paved way for Jurgen Klopp’s men who cut down City’s lead to just six points with their win over Norwich.
Guardiola has hence given his side a point target, warning that they would have to be at their best to be able to win the Premier League.
“We have to fight for every game and every game we are going to win we will be closer,” he told reporters.
“I said weeks ago we have to make a lot of points to be champions and this is what we will try to do.
“The margin against Liverpool is nothing. We have to win a lot – more than 90 points – 95, 96 to be champions.
“We can lose, but it’s the way we lose [that’s important]. You can lose in different ways. Many times, when we lose, we lose as a great team and we have to continue in this way.”
The Catalan credits his winning mentality to his days at Barcelona where he said he learnt to expect the worst outcome.
“I was born in Barcelona and their academy taught me everything,” Guardiola added.
“The best way, even there, is to think everything can go wrong.
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“The warnings to yourself have to be as an individual player or as a team that tomorrow you can go down and lose and lose and lose. That’s the best way to approach games.
“We made an incredible run in the Premier League so far and Liverpool is still there round the corner. That shows how amazing and difficult our opponent is.
“We know, of course, we can lose and be bad and drop points – this is not the issue – it’s how you behave in those moments when you lose games.
“We can lose, of course we can lose. Nobody always wins. The important is being there and knowing we have to win.
“We have to fight to win the Premier League and, if we want to win, we will have to win an incredible amount of points against an incredible opponent we’ve faced many times.”
Manchester City have 12 games left to play in the Premier League and will be hoping to gather as many points as they can over rivals Liverpool.
The difference between the sides has been reduced to six points after City’s latest defeat. Liverpool also have a game in hand and a win will cut the gap further down to three points.
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