Pep Guardiola Urges Manchester City to Put Liverpool Under Title Pressure

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola believes Liverpool are under enormous pressure to deliver the Premier League title this season and has called on his side to turn up the heat when they meet up on Thursday.

The Reds, who travel to the Etihad Stadium on Thursday with a seven-point lead over third-place City, last won a league title in 1990.

Per Chris Wheeler of the Daily Mail, he said:

"When I lived in Barcelona and after Bayern Munich, I know what it means for the players. 

"I can feel what they feel, the Liverpool players. After 29 years not winning the Premier League to be there to win it, I understand.

"I said to the players, that's difficult to handle. That is why this season [we have to] maintain there for as far as possible.

"For me, that's an immense and a huge motivation. Why don't we try it, to catch them up and pressure them?"

Liverpool took a commanding lead in the title race during December, when City lost three times, but the Sky Blues can narrow the gap to four points with a win on Thursday.

City showed last season they are capable of putting remarkable winning runs together—they won 18 games in a row between August and December—and if they were to do similar in the second half of this campaign, the pressure on Liverpool not to falter would be incredible.

They need to beat the Reds first, though, and as Goal's Sam Lee noted following their 3-1 win over Southampton, the champions need to improve on recent performances if they are to do so:

Liverpool are unbeaten in the Premier League this season and have shipped just eight goals, so taking all three points on Thursday will require an enormous effort from the Citizens.

If the Reds manage to win and go 10 points clear, the biggest pressure they will face is that they put on themselves.