Guardiola Admits Title Race Out of City's Hands
Pep Guardiola has spent most of his Manchester City reign dictating title races, not chasing them. On Monday night at Hill Dickinson Stadium, he walked into the press room and admitted something he almost never has to say.
“It’s now not in our hands,” he said. “Before it was, now no.”
A 3-3 draw at Everton, wild and breathless and utterly draining, has tilted the Premier League balance towards Arsenal. City had arrived on Merseyside with a simple equation: beat Everton, beat Brentford five days later, and they would pull level with the leaders. Instead, they leave five points behind, still with a game in hand, but suddenly needing help.
For Guardiola, this felt less like a point gained than two thrown away.
“It’s better than losing,” he said, the shrug almost audible. “We’d rather win. We play for that, and we just showed what a team we are. We tried everything. The players were aggressive.”
They needed every ounce of that aggression just to escape with a draw. The match descended into chaos, the kind of end-to-end contest City usually control but here had to survive. Everton refused to fold. City refused to accept defeat.
The pressure finally told deep into stoppage time. Jeremy Doku, who had already struck once, drove in the 97th-minute equaliser to complete his double and drag City back from the brink. The away end exploded; on the touchline, Guardiola’s reaction was more muted. Relief, yes. Satisfaction, nowhere in sight.
Doku’s words afterwards carried the same sting.
“It’s painful now, but there’s still a lot of games to go, and anything can happen,” the winger said. “We’ll keep on fighting. We owe it to ourselves and our fans.”
Erling Haaland, who had scored in the 83rd minute to ignite the late surge, walked off repeating the message. “We’re still in it,” he told his teammates as they shook hands at full-time. It sounded less like bravado and more like a vow.
The table, though, tells its own story. Four games remain for City in the league. Four for Arsenal. The champions still have a route, but no longer the steering wheel.
City’s run-in is unforgiving. After Brentford on Saturday come Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and Aston Villa. None of them are straightforward assignments for a side now chasing, not setting, the pace. Arsenal, by contrast, stare at a schedule that looks softer on paper: West Ham United, Burnley and Palace. One fighting for survival, one already gone, one drifting.
This is the margin City have surrendered. Where once they could afford a misstep, now they must wait for Arsenal to take one.
Guardiola, though, still has more than the league on his plate. Even as their title hopes absorb a heavy blow, City remain in the hunt for a domestic treble. They have already taken the League Cup, beating Arsenal in March, and on May 16 they will walk out at Wembley to face Chelsea in the FA Cup final.
The season, then, is balanced on a knife edge. A campaign that could still end in another historic haul of trophies now hinges on whether City can chase down a rival they no longer control—and whether Arsenal, for once, blink first.
