Of course Pep Guardiola does care if Manchester City win the Premier League. He's set incredibly high standards and City are a club who expect to be challenging for titles year after year.
However, defeat at Manchester United - which followed City's abysmal loss at Southampton - has exposed something more pressing than any title talk. It's a fear Guardiola admits he could feel was possible before the season even began due to the pressures of challenging for a title three years on the bounce. And he's spent months warning that the World Cup could have any number of unknown consequences on the domestic season, which could be having a hidden influence on their current slump.
Maybe it was Guardiola's sarcasm or tongue-in-cheek nature that was slightly lost in translation when he said: "I don't care about the Premier League and the Carabao Cup, we cannot win. We won a lot, so it's not a problem."
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Some outlets misquoted Guardiola's comments as more defeatist than they were, but the underlining message appeared to be the same: City 'cannot win' the Premier League.
Maybe Guardiola's intended meaning was that they cannot win if they continue to play as they have been in the last two games. "The problem is performing how we have done," he continued. "So Carabao Cup is out. It doesn’t matter. But we didn’t perform how we are. And today we performed."
Guardiola declared after the shambles at Southampton that City have only deserved not to win twice this season - at St Mary's and in the home defeat to Brentford. Against United, and in the home draw with Everton, Guardiola went out of his way to praise the improved performance and rue the anomalous nature of the results.
Everton scored with their only shot on target to take a point from City, while United got back in the game with a goal that was clearly offside - even if Guardiola was keen not to blame that decision for another three dropped points.
Instead, he has pointed to City's attitude as the main factor behind back-to-back defeats.
Before the game, he suggested some home truths must be given to his players at times, and he has warned them on a few occasions in recent weeks that he must be able to rely on his whole squad to be willing to fight for their titles if City want to be successful again this season. It will, therefore, concern Guardiola that Manuel Akanji admitted City's heads were not clear in the aftermath of Bruno Fernandes' controversial goal, which led to the defence switching off for Marcus Rashford's winner at Old Trafford.
And so too will the fact that City have stopped creating chances in the last few outings. Jack Grealish's goal at Old Trafford was City's only shot on target across their two defeats, while goal machine Erling Haaland has gone three appearances without finding the net. In his absence, nobody is stepping up to fire City out of their current slump, which arguably goes back further than their two defeats this week.
Away at Chelsea they had to drastically improve in the second half, and they were guilty of not creating clear opportunities in the Everton draw. Going back further, it was a similar story against Brentford before the World Cup, and they needed a 95th-minute penalty to beat Fulham after Joao Cancelo's red card. While wins may have been common before the break, performances have arguably been up and down for a few months now.
Ilkay Gundogan said at Southampton that City's hunger and desire are lacking, and that 'something is missing' in the dressing room regarding the collective mentality. That tallies with some disjointed performances that have lacked the fluency that fans have become used to.
So maybe that's why Guardiola doesn't care about title talk because he knows there is a bigger issue to tackle before a second charge to close down Arsenal is made - one that City might have been getting away with but is now catching up on them.
Gundogan also said City could emerge stronger from Southampton by using it as a wake-up call, and City responded at United in terms of application, but there is still room for improvement to fix City's mentality problems.
It may be a case of papering over cracks in the short turnaround to Thursday's clash with Chelsea and the visit of Wolves, which have turned into 'must-win' fixtures if City do in fact want to keep within touching distance of Arsenal. After that, they have two weeks without a midweek fixture as they are not in the Carabao Cup, so work can really be put towards restoring that confidence on the training ground and giving players the 'home truths' they might need.
Fix those issues, and maybe Guardiola will have reason to start caring about the title again.
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