Full reactions to Manchester City's decisive 4-1 win over Arsenal | Premier League | NBC Sports

Peter, thank you. What a manager he is, what a team they are. Manchester City take a huge step towards the third straight Premier League title. Seven straight Premier League wins with seven games to go. Arsenal, as you can see, have the two-point cushion. They've played two more games. City also, if it were to come down to it, have a better goal difference. And that man has the most goals in a 38-game Premier League season. He stands today at 33. But for how long? season City went unbeaten in their last 12 to clinch the title they're now unbeaten in 10 in the Premier League they're unbeaten in 17 in all competitions as Arsenal are left to rue the day having a word with former City Arsenal player Bakari Sanye working for the television broadcasters today. forgetting apart from Nathan Arkay it's a fully fit squad as they head into this final run this treble chase to try to match their neighbours Manchester United who did it of course way back in 1999. City very much in the driving seat across all three competitions. Elsewhere today massive victory for Steve Cooper's men Nottingham Forest have beaten Brighton at home by three goals to one. What about that five straight defeats now for Frank Lampard as interim manager of Chelsea. They've been beaten at home by West London neighbours a team they've barely played in their history because the two have hardly ever been in the same league. They've lost them to them today by two goals to nil and Liverpool have beaten West Ham by two goals to one to move into sixth position and as you can see the bottom there City have beaten Arsenal by four goals to one. Welcoming you back inside our studio don't go anywhere because Peter Drury, Lee Dixon, Graham Lasso are heading downstairs to our pitch side desk at the Etihad where we expect to talk to some certainly Manchester City players and hopefully Pep Guardiola will join us as well. Robbie Musto, Robbie Earl alongside me. Well quite simply Robbie Musto they're a class apart. They're a class apart from the manager to the players to the subs to everything they're doing now they've been here before course and distance they face the best challenges of others in this league of course notably Liverpool even Pep in his pre-match press conference was just like another game for him and you've got to say Arsenal just run out of steam they've run out of steam now last few matches today you know there was a big mismatch in quality today and you can talk about City and the finances that's enabled them to produce a score that's so good I mean so good the subs coming into the game Alvarez, Mahrez and Phil Foden I mean it's just it was just too much for Arsenal today. Could Arsenal have done more? Of course they could and they'll look at video and they'll talk about it but to be honest watching it Rebecca with our eyes from minute one through to minute 90 odd City were better and I thought title know-how beat title novices on the day they knew what was required and Pep Guardiola deserves so much credit for what he's doing at this football club Robbie's mentioned that he's got the finance Chelsea got plenty of finance they're sitting in the bottom half of the table but in terms of what he's done how he does it continually with this team we've not seen the likes in the Premier League of a team who can dismantle the opposition in the way they did inverted fullbacks what was that you know false nines what was that he goes with a full nine now with Orland still shows he can do it again Rebecca and this year's title would seem to be about either Arsenal winning it or Arsenal blowing it and he didn't give enough credit to Manchester City who've now closed that gap and now in the position they want to be. And they have such a real chance to win the treble if they can negotiate Real Madrid in the semi-finals of the Champions League and of course Manchester United in the FA Cup final both of those games will be in June. Where does this Man City team stand for you over the past 10 years of City teams we've seen some good ones. We have but this this has to be right up there in my opinion and we'll see what happens with Real Madrid that's an incredibly difficult tie for two legs to beat them the champions but I think Man City now look as good as they've ever looked and I think as long as Pep Guardiola's manager this football club it's going to be hard for everybody else it just is simple tactical switch today and Arteta couldn't really adjust to it had no answers for it they dominate this game they dominate and he also has a the knack of of getting his players in the perfect mental state physical state just one injury again they never get injuries as well this football club they rotate so much and he gets you know I think they'd lost like three or four games pretty early and I'm like maybe they're gonna lose too many games then they go on an incredible run and look super strong at this point in the season. The one thing that you you would say with Pep's teams is like as a group and and collectively they're all in good nick but I won't mention one player and it's Kevin De Bruyne of Rebecca who probably doesn't like this this style I heard him this week saying it's a normal game we'll have normal preparation we'll do it the normal way there's something normal about Kevin De Bruyne that's reassuring he hasn't got the haircuts and the tattoos and the style but he's a unique exceptional footballer who was a difference maker today two goals and assists dominated the game tore the midfield of Arsenal apart with his intelligent movement you have to say that Pep and this group have timed it to perfection. Where do Arsenal go from here? Well yeah in terms of this season try and try and regain that confidence and try and get back on the front foot and try and win some games again you know we'll spend a longer time talking about Arsenal but they have made huge leaps this season huge leaps this season but right now they haven't got the tools to compete with Man City they've gone really really close and they're 16 points I think ahead of anybody else so they've had a great season but when it really mattered they haven't quite got the same talent experience mental toughness and just being there before the young players will grow they need to add to it but of course you know they've got to take pride in what they've done this year. Just quickly Rob what I would say is there was an appreciation from the Arsenal fans in the attiad tonight you heard them singing Rebecca when it was at 3-1 they're all in and they know this this team's given its best they've just not been good enough. Okay so next up in this title race Manchester City of course still sitting second and two points behind they have a trip to Fulham coverage starts this coming Sunday at 8 Eastern on USA Network for Arsenal their next game is at home against Chelsea who've lost their last five in all competitions that's next Tuesday coverage also starts on USA that one at 2 p.m Eastern tomorrow lots of action to bring you Everton against Newcastle huge now with that relegation picture looking so bad for Everton who are second bottom by the way Leicester have now dropped into that bottom three after Forrester's victory today Southampton against Bournemouth is the other game and then at 3.15 on Peacock it's Tottenham against Manchester United Tottenham under Ryan Mason of course tomorrow spurs against Manchester United. Here's how Robbie Pep Guardiola Michael Arteta we know they knew each other so well but as you said Arteta simply had no answer virtually from the start yeah and it wasn't particularly complicated for Man City and again here Arsenal trying to do the right thing but City at this moment in time can do that because they've got a big guy up there that takes the ball beautifully I mean it's a wonderful goal Kevin De Bruyne had so much freedom in midfield his pace here kind of surprised me got away from Thomas Barty gets away from Gabriel as well and it's such an accurate finish again from a different angle Rob Holding is never going to out physical and that touches beautiful De Bruyne but then just switching tacks inside here it just sprints away and that's such an accurate strike again little look there where it's at least two looks there and then just a softness with that physical challenge to be able to do that away from defender and touch it beautifully but look at this I mean that's outside the post swerves in there's a tiny little window there wow what a goal that was from Kevin De Bruyne. De Bruyne could have had two actually on 26 minutes but for Ben White's block yes and again this time they don't get tight Ireland in that sense Gabriel doesn't go all the way De Bruyne makes a simple run in behind again and gets him behind here expecting to score here but fair play to Ben White he does kind of lunge to get the block on but just the two of them City often attack Rebecca in the wide areas and they want to be good at attacking wide areas today they attack through the centre and they're really really good at it some games they go wide some games they focus on the inside attacking and that's what they did so well today. Arsenal's only look at the first half? Yeah we just show this because Partey's got a member scoring one like that where you know sometimes he can be accurate with ease not this time and had so few looks so little of the ball in the first half that they couldn't really get their exciting players Saka going or Martin Eberdon at all. Ramsdale keeping them in the game here Arsenal? Yeah again and just individuals not competitive enough you know it's too easy for those blue shirts to get around the outside good work here from the goalkeeper Ramsdale isn't it he just realizes he's got to hook that ball away two City players coming in and does a pretty good job. They almost got to half-time 1-0 but no. That's right good header John Stones here and they all went offside and you know the flag goes up at his first look. On that look he looks offside doesn't he? He does look offside but we don't have an angle in the exact spot and I know it's not easy to do that but what I'm saying this that's not a good angle that's just not a good angle his toe pokes out from that angle we'll never know what the real kind of story you know I'm longing for semi-automatic offsides to come into the Premier League which we've seen in the Champions League for sure. Yeah they're on the way they're on the way yeah into the second half Rob. Yeah and it was well the next goal was always going to be crucial in this game and Erlan Harland gets away from Gabriel this is too easy and Ramsdale comes up with another big safety to his feet again as Harland goes through goalkeeper reads it and gets his foot to the ball. Harland a little bit disappointed he's not made it to 3-0 but they didn't have to wait too much longer in a game so Arsenal give him possession away. Odegaard in midfield here's a transition the front two players De Bruyne and Harland combine and De Bruyne just knows exactly what to do that the defender's going to lift his leg up he puts it through the legs and pass the goalkeeper and look at the dejection of the Arsenal players they knew with that went the game and here's Odegaard in midfield they turn possession over too cheaply in the second half and Harland again plays the role times the ball into De Bruyne he knows exactly what he's doing he just flicks it into the back of the net and Nicola Tetter knows with that he's gone to probably gone to three points they did get a reaction and actually a consolation goal from unlikely source Rob Holding had a difficult time with Harland defensively find himself in a good spot in the 18-yard box and this is a really good finish actually gets his foot behind the ball as the ball gets played out from City from the corner kick it's well recycled again by Arsenal Trossard in this wide area they managed to get him in a good spot in behind when he lays the ball there's the one-touch finish from Holding and thinking it's not going to be one of those late dramatic Arsenal comebacks is it no no you were right and Erlan Harland who played such a big part in the game today then comes up with his big moment and what a moment that is 33 goals in the 38 game Premier League season a new record for the league doesn't catch it as well as he's like but the hair's down the hair's flowing right the goals are flowing and Erlan Harland is setting records 49 goals in all competitions now for the big man fitting way in Manchester City at 4-1 to see off Arsenal that's a celebration Guardiola is his main man as Robbie says gets his 49th goal across all competitions his 33rd in the Premier League which in a 38 game season as Robbie said is a record as the old friends embrace their in the end so they're on for the treble you have to say it their second two points by an arse with two games in hand Champions League we mentioned at the semi-finals on May 9th and 17th where they face Real Madrid home and away and then the FA Cup final not until June the 3rd that's against Manchester United first ever Manchester derby in the FA Cup the only English team as I said back in 99 to win the treble their neighbours Manchester United let's take you down pitch side then to the Etihad Stadium Peter Drury, Lee Dixon, Graham Lasseau on your little walk down you've had time to digest the whole thing and soak up what's the atmosphere as the players left the field so it's over to you guys for some post-match thoughts yeah well walking through the crowds on our way down Rebecca we certainly got a feel for what they consider this to be and obviously they consider it to be a seminal moment and I think guys what we have to remind ourselves is that Arsenal are a very very good football team and Manchester City were a lot better than Arsenal tonight and so I asked the kind of obvious question how close to optimal were Manchester City I mean how near to as good as you can be were they well I think when you play against them you've got to play your best game I think any tide going up against them they're so complete in all departments and Arsenal didn't do that tonight and they didn't do that because they were just well schooled by Pep you know his tactics they've got brilliant players in every position but the way he set them up tonight was exceptional and we said is he going to do something is he going to tweak it well he gave arguably Man City's best player if you take Harland out of it as a as a footballer their best player freedom of the park and he said go out and destroy this team in front of you and go wherever you want within reason but you're basically playing wherever you want as a 10 a floating 10 and 8 or 6 well do what you want Kevin De Bruyne and go and have a field day and he had a field day and they were brilliant all part and Graham said it in commentary certain players were sacrificed or had to be sacrificed the wide players looking in from the outside because they went straight down the middle they looked at the the partnership of the two centre-backs and said that's their weakness what do we do put our best player best two players in that place and they destroyed Arsenal tonight one of the things sorry one of the things that impresses me so much about this team they're so heavily coached as a team Manchester City you know they work so hard in training remember we spoke to Kyle Walker years ago and him saying that you know you come off the training ground every day and you're just taking in so much information all the time he's constantly evolving but they've got that wonderful balance between coach within within an inch of their lives but also given the freedom to go out and make decisions for themselves so they're not so coached to restrict them they're coached to give themselves the best opportunity you to use their footballing brains to execute a plan and adapt within a game and I think that's one of the stunning things that sets this city team apart from anyone else they played out from the back when they could the first goal John Stones went from that corner to here to long to Harland they did it three or four times back to front when they needed to and it's just it's just this blend and it's looking at every other team and I think we'd feel the same if we were still playing thinking just how how do you stop them because they've answered the question that you before you've even asked it so if we can break down the plan a little bit they stopped Arsenal being Arsenal tonight never mind what they did going forward De Bruyne, Harland all of that beautiful stuff I've rarely if ever seen Martinelli so quiet Saka so quiet we asked about Akanji playing at left back this this this Manchester City plan if you can do that to Arsenal why isn't somebody else doing that to us what is differently just because they've got all the best players and they've got all the intelligent players and the best coach in the world and they just say you know we're used to the right back whether it be Walker or Stones going in there and playing in there they just went right your best players are your two wingers and Akanji and Walker stayed wide and said we're going to do that so they nullified that they also they also the way that they that they play forces Arsenal to go right we need to win this game so we'll go on the press so when we go on the press we'll just hit it long or hit it to De Bruyne they just run out of they've run out of men they put them their men were in the wrong place and that was the tactics of City that made them do that and then they passed through the press to their best player and he linked up with their best player and they won 4-1 the possession the possession side of it is is absolutely critical as well City control possession so well but they do in a positive way so they they protect the ball whilst also looking to hurt the opponent and and that puts I think everyone on the back foot immediately you can start with a press but if you don't get success in the first couple against the team this good you then start to doubt yourself that then leads to the next set of problems and it's just this again it's this beautiful blend the players are so pliable they totally believe in Pep Guardiola's plan whatever he says to them they go and do and they execute it so willingly they all they also had a midfield player in me an experienced midfield player who couldn't work it out part a was he needed help he needed somebody to go and he I I think that if you're an experienced player like it should be able to work out certain things but you are playing one of the the world's best teams so it's very difficult I don't want to be too critical of him but he lost the plot he wasn't picking up he was getting runners running off him you might say well he needed help and possibly that's Arteta's you know uh territory to say right Saka just go really tight and just plug those holes and see get City to play in front of you they were just playing on the back of part a the whole of that first half okay well we're going to hear from Arsenal's midfield actually now from their captain uh Martin Oerdegaard in the tunnel Martin it's been a very tough evening here you never really reached the level required why was that um no I don't know why um but yeah as you said um they were the better team we didn't play on our level and uh yeah I think they were a lot better than us uh in many areas of the game so it's disappointing um I don't have a good answer um to say why but um today was like this you're chasing the game from the start that sort of dents confidence doesn't it yeah I mean they get the game where they want with the early goal there and uh and yeah when they get the second one as well just before halftime it makes it all difficult so so yeah definitely City seem to be going more direct tonight they seem to be going across above your press yeah I think they can they can do different things now you know with the with ailing up front um they can go more direct and the dangerous there as well so so yeah it's difficult to defend um they can play from the back and they can go direct as well so it's difficult to defend but I think anyway we should uh we should do better we should win more duels uh compete better and uh and yeah when we have the ball we should do more as well so yeah and such a big game you must be pretty downcast in that dressing room tonight yeah I think everyone is down now of course um we wanted to come here and get something uh also the last three games before this one was wasn't the best for us so yeah we just have to stick together and and keep pushing and keep going five games to go it's still possible yeah everything is possible you know I think everyone disappointed now everyone really down at the moment but as I said we have to keep going we have to stick together um in football anything can happen so we have to do our part and and then we have to see he says they have to keep going that that is going to be a tough recovery period isn't it it is um but there's going to be more disappointments than victories and every team has to go through it and until they get to the next level which is what we've just seen tonight and they're a bit off that yeah we know that they've had a brilliant season but that's part of being a professional footballer is you lose you do lose and it's how you lose and it's how you bounce back and it's all the cliche things but that's what it's about that you sit at home watching the tv for a couple of days after you've played a game like this really down you know your family your kids are playing around and you have to get yourself mentally right in order to go back just to training let alone trying to play again at the weekend but that's what it's about and if you can't do that at this level you won't be at this level for very long they can't get too down peter they play chelsea at home on uh tuesday so they'll be well up for that in all seriousness is it a truth or a fallacy that you learn more from the bad days no definitely you try to learn from the from the successes of course and there's plenty to learn from the successes but it's it's it's much easier i think in ways to learn from the poorer performances because i'd agree it'd be great for mikhail arteta and i'm sure he'll do it is to watch this game but it from city's perspective because he's trying to emulate them in terms of the style the way they play the principles and you could do far worse than watch that performance from city today and you'd learn just as much about the way you can you can play going forwards in terms of in the future as you can from your own team's performance and and the frailties and then you know i was thinking during that second half who's he going to want to replace if he has a checkbook for the summer to go out and buy players who are those players he's going to replace because in the end it's all about improving and and getting stronger as a group and getting a stronger more balanced squad i'm delighted to say chaps that we're being uh interrupted here and you're very welcome to interrupt us kevin by uh kevin de bruyne you're live on american television now kevin we're delighted delighted to have you with us and we were asking the question and it's not a very testing one for you how close to that how close was that for you to as good as it gets no you know i think we played really well i think you know the way that arsenal press the opposition is is top with class honestly it's it's really really good and it's very it's almost impossible to play from the back especially when it's a goal kick it's like a set piece and we know uh we had to play longer today and we we tried a couple of things in training i think you know i tried to get a little bit deep and then try to run off earling when he kept the ball and i think we found that a couple of times and you know i think in the first half we we created some chances that this way and it was important to to set the tone he owed you a couple of assists it works together you know obviously he gave me a few in the beginning of the season and i didn't have my shooting boots really on but today it was important and it was good kevin i'm sure this isn't the case but it seemed to us from watching it and doing the commentary upstairs that pepper said to you just go out there and have a free roll and just play where you want to play hurt the opposition you were in so much space behind party and you look like you really enjoyed that role yeah i think normally we play a little bit with two number eights and i think he wanted a little bit more control because the way that they pressed so gundo would be like a double six and i had to choose more the moments depending on who presses out of shaka or party and if party was pressing i would try to go in his back and the opposite around and then it was difficult for holding and gabrielle then to do i need to go with kevin uh with me and then i was staying with earling and i could have found the the moments in the first half and obviously they switched a little bit in the in the second half but you know i was a little bit more free today and with that link i saw you two i think it was up after one of the goals where you and earling were having a little chat in the first half was that just tweaking something about you know as you said if he dropped deep you went a little bit behind and vice versa yeah yeah it was a little bit trying to find that way i think sometimes it was difficult because they were leaving reuben free in open play and i was just saying if i drop deep and holding is coming with me try and be in my back because gabrielle then needs to shrift all the way across and that's hard and i think that that's when we we were trying to to exploit so just following on from that how much freedom does pep give you because you're so coached all of you but you've also got that wonderful balance of being given so much freedom to make decisions for yourselves on the pitch um i think um what we train most of the times is uh high pressing and goal kicks everything in between is a little bit more free so i would say the first 45 meters 60 meters is pretty rigid in the beginning because you need to try and control because everybody tries to press you in a way these days but once you go in the opposition half it's more freedom and then it's trying to exploit uh the spaces that you get because everybody does it differently we we saw the difference in how you play today more down the middle you and um harland is this some sort of um acknowledgement to the wide guys today because you play obviously greelish on one side and silver on the other we're a little bit on the outside looking in it was basically you you and harland just basically running the show in that space that you had i think it's hard sometimes when you're winger or central midfielder when when you play man v man and you get the ball always there's always somebody in your back and i think for me today when early at the ball i could run forward so i think it's more dangerous if you have plays running forward and you know when you are in the back it's a little bit of a subdued role for them but it's so important the more they're wide the more spaces we get in the middle and it makes it very important to finish kevin i won't ask you the obvious but i'll question about what you're going to win who knows what you're going to win but we've been talking about arsenal and what they will learn from tonight playing against the team as good as you how do you continue to learn from here where can you go as a football team from that extraordinary level well we try and maintain the consistency is the most important thing and i think we don't try to put too much emotion just the right emotion that you need to perform at the best level but you can't get over the limit because there's too much going on and i know people will say oh now it's done and city will win but we've got almost 25 to play in the league and in between we've got madrid so there's a lot of things going on but i think in a way it's good because we don't have the time to think what can happen in the future we need to be ready in another three days to perform that we have to at full and maybe that's that's good that we have all these games coming up well thank you for spending some of that time with us we really appreciate it kevin and i must say it seems a very sycophantic thing to say but genuinely it's such a joy to see you play the football that you play thank you so much thank you thank you so there's a winner we're going to hear from the losing coach though now uh mikhail arteta in the tunnel mikhail that's a bruising night that's it's got to hurt what was what was missing out there tonight well we were beaten by the by the better team that's for sure they were exceptional today and when does the case is extremely difficult to reach that level and um and we were nowhere near enough our level especially in the first half and when you open that gap against them you get punished yeah they set the standards but did they change tactics a little bit they catch you with the long ball tonight i did they've been doing that in that precious game um when you have him one corner and they kick it 60 yards they win that duel they run through you uh yeah you have to start first of all competing and winning your duels and um and all the very basic things today against this team we didn't do them in the first half and we're punished and we could have been even more punished because it's a set piece we can sit from our own throw an open goal um very difficult and they scored early that knocks a bit of belief out of the players after three successive draws as well it does but especially you know the way we were in the in the first 20 30 minutes um they were on top of us we could not handle that situation we're not compete well enough in in every duel and it has to start like that the game they proposed it was being extremely extremely direct and we knew that they they have the capacity to do that because they can stretch you the pitch 60 70 yards with this goalkeeper and first of all you have to be in the right position then you have to compete for that ball and once we won up we lost it straight away as you said before this doesn't decide the title but does it tip the balance now well today is very difficult night um obviously after the way we lost but um but we have to to stand up um look the bigger picture and the fact that we are competing toe to toe with this team and it's incredible to be fair um and we want to want to compete and we're not going to give up and it's five games to go in this league anything can happen and i've seen a lot of things because i've been here more than 20 years and you have to believe that tonight is it difficult to do that but um you have to look in the mirror as well we have to accept that we have lost against an exceptional team and and that's the level that's about as downbeat as michael arteta has sound in the last couple of weeks and it's completely understandable but now he has to find it he is the leader he is the motivator someone's got to try and motivate him yeah yeah who motivates a motivator and and it's it's going to be a difficult week for him um you're right i think he he had a confidence and a belief in his group he you know we talked about was he going to change it at the back was he going to change it for it was almost like i'm going to go with my team i'm going to go the way we play i'm going to go to manchester city and try and win the game i think there was a realization that there's a distance between the two of back when they got i think um reed dixon's called it school they got schooled today by a much better team with more know-how and can they use this as a learning curve can they get better can they bring players in the summer that's going to be a challenge for arteta and arsenal because it's whether or not they can learn quickly and win their next five and finish just behind city if city do win the league or whether that learning is going to take a bit longer and it's going to be a bit of a struggle to the end of the season and then the learning comes in the summer what do you think yeah it's well the learning will continue will continue they've learned some harsh lessons that will benefit them um to now to the end of the season i mean just i think it'd be difficult i honestly think they got gotta go to newcastle newcastle and chelsea yeah they've got chelsea newcastle brighton forest and wall yeah so i mean they need to finish a little bit strongly after this this little um drop off the only thing i would say you know there he did talk about a lot about the duels the team didn't match duels all i'd say if i'm being critical a little bit when you see after 10-15 minutes that kevin reborn is running amok do something could he could have done something a little quicker you know i think if he'd been on the other side of it pep like very quick to change things if he doesn't like what he sees that his learning though rob talk about the team learning is you know things are going on it's a massive game all that's going on is that part of his learning maybe i've got to detach myself and maybe make a change try and stop the game he trusts how they do it and it's been very very good apart from the last few weeks but just the the the linking up of those front two there is some things he could have brought credit jacob back to play alongside thomas parter to help him out in trying to snuff out kevin deboyner well as you said he's still learning this is still his first job he's only about three and a half years into it so a novice you have to say certainly compared to pep guardiola manchester city have now beaten arsenal by four goals to one the cushion is cut to two points city have two games in hand newcastle and manchester united at the moment looking very clear favorites for the top four and then villa up to fifth after yesterday's win liverpool now up to sixth tottenham all of a sudden without a manager actually on their third of the season ryan mason are in seventh then it's brighton brentford and for them let's go back to the etihad here is aaron ramsdale aaron what went wrong tonight we didn't compete to our full potential in the first half give a top top side two nil two no head start going into halftime when they play at that level you have to compete you have to try and match them because they are the the team which you've inspired aspire to be in this league um and for the first 45 minutes we struggled to to match them in the jewels uh in the running stats and then we give two goals away and yeah it's an uphill battle what do you think the key difference was between the two teams tonight just that really i think when they're when they're on top of their game they're pretty unstoppable but when you hand them um hand them a foot up in the game it's it's a difficult one and like i said we just didn't really compete for 45 minutes and we have to look at ourselves and um one will learn from but like i said this team when when it's going when they get going properly they're hard to stop clearly it's a very disappointing result tonight you do still have a lead in the title race you do have games in hand of course how low are the players after that result well as you can imagine walking off the pitch five minutes ago pretty low but um if anything can happen in this in football and in a league it's the premier league um strange things have happened we'll go all the way to the end um five massive games left for us we want to show pride and how we've been playing for nine months you know we haven't we haven't played nine months of premier league football doing what we've been doing how we've been doing it just to give up with five games to go so um we'll bounce back and um we'll die we'll go through everything as we we do every week and um yeah it starts starts on tuesday against chelsea now we've got something to clear up for you there has been some debate over on social media with regards at manchester city's second goal by john stones there he looks offside when the ball is kicked from that set piece but we have spoken to pgmol they of course ruled it as onside and they have assured us that the lines were drawn correctly so just clarifying reports there that we said earlier on that could have been actually onside no pgmol said it was correct it was an on side goal so for one the final score let's hear from pep guardiola well pep tell us the story from the manchester city point of view tonight i'll make a really good game from both for more aspects so through all the abscodes the concentration the set pieces defensively how aggressive we were in to create good environment and after from the beginning we we start really well we read the game well our build-up was much much better than emirates like we could not do it and and we make considering the opponents that we face and fantastic performance have you got any more words to describe kevin de bruyne it seems like every week we we have to go to another level with him yeah definitely is a special player so we had this weekend today was a game like uh what was peggy they make high pressing we make high pressing is long ball second balls and we're able to we need a contact with kevin and we can run with uh edling he's an incredible threat up front you know the connection and them so and kevin was yeah it was brilliant a slight change at the back we saw a kanji playing on the left hand side that worked really well where did that come from no it was it was so difficult to decide uh because uh i thought a lot to put ime in that position i'll build up with him as the best player that we have but what i saw when i saw uh oh we saw manu akanji playing against command against uh leroy against by munich how how defensively was strong to make one against one in that position and uh i i decide okay because sakai is an incredible threat and we need a guy like can sustain the one against one like kyle and martinelli because they are so good and we could jump more the players inside but at the sides we should control these two players because they are amazing and manu winning duels like during command on sakai on the other ones that's why at the at the end we decide we said for him now we know for the title it's a really important win but with the schedule you've got what does it do to the energy does it help to keep everybody going of course winning helps and being there and winning and being the semifinal championship final ff cup and being there of course helps a lot so the tiredness almost doesn't exist so it's there so but the reality could could could could feel i'm naive but they are two points in front of us so we are still running top on the tail of course we are incredible victory we have two games in hand but you have to win i would love to have these two in the hand six points and have to be up front of him the reality they are and we cannot lose our focus and focus is tomorrow we would recover it rest well and prepare for them at early early morning because now we are there is definitely in our hands and when it's in our hands we have to use it many said this wouldn't be a defining day for the title but with the result coupled with such a performance you cannot now bet against city it is theirs to lose as he just said their guardiola arsehole have handed it over city are going to take some stopping again we'll see you tomorrow for plenty more premier league football good night hi there i'm rebecca lowe studio host for nbc's coverage of the premier league don't forget to hit 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