Work Guardiola said Manchester city a tough battle – “time to survive” – to reclaim their Premier League title after they were held to a 2-2 lead by Crystal Palace.
City avoided a sixth straight defeat in all competitions after goals from Erling Haaland and Rico Lewis equalized Crystal Palace’s goals from Daniel Muñoz and Maxence Lacroix. However, Lewis, who has been ruled out after related injuries to Nathan Aké and Manuel Akanji, will be sent off at the Etihad after the Manchester derby after a second yellow card was shown in the 84th minute, reducing the visitors to 10 men. Selhurst Park.
City are already without several first-team players in Turin on Wednesday in the Champions League and Guardiola is preparing for his injuries at the hands of a youth team. The leaders of the city trail, Liverpool, played eight more points.
“It’s time to survive. We can’t talk about the title race when we’ve lost and drawn four games in a row,” he said.
“We know from the beginning that we were unlucky in many ways and with the players we have available.”
Jack Grealsih and Jérémy Doku were recently substituted, despite Guardiola taking care of their workload. But while he wasn’t happy with the way his side saved Palatine’s second goal from a corner, he was happy Haaland netted to bring him level with Mohamed Salah on 13 league goals.
“We are lucky,” he said. “We are so lucky to have this time, we are lucky Rico” [Lewis]We have a happy Bernardo [Silva], [Ilkay] Gündo, all the players, Josko [Gvardiol]. All these players are playing all season and playing without rest. We are so lucky to have these four, five, six players…”
Post Newsletter promotion
Palace manager, Oliver Glasner, felt his side could have had more against the reigning champions. “We took the lead twice, especially after going 2-1 down,” he said.
“This is not easy against City. It’s not a criticism of the players, but it’s about your third season. They find a gap of one rod by touching one or the other.