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Pep Guardiola claims Man City produced ‘best performance of the season’ despite drawing to Southampton

Pep Guardiola claims Man City produced ‘best performance of the season’ despite drawing to Southampton

Pep Guardiola was adamant that Man City produced their best display of the season despite drawing to Southampton and seeing their long winning run ended.

The Saints held the league leaders to a 1-1 draw, as City were unable to find a winner as they piled on the pressure late on.

It brought an end to a run of 12 consecutive wins in the Premier League, but the City boss was certainly not downcast after the match as he showered praise on his side.

“Outstanding game, we played really well - it was one of the best performances of the season,” Guardiola said.

“Against a team that defend incredibly well, that we suffered against all of the time, this is one of the best performance we have produced against them.

“If you analyse the result it is 1-1, but in terms of the performance and how we played it was excellent.

“In the second-half, with the first action Ederson had to make an incredible save, but the rest was perfect.”

The result leaves City 12 points clear at the top of the table, though Liverpool have two games in hand over them.

After last week’s win over Chelsea, it seemed that City were on an unstoppable march towards the title, but that was not the view of Guardiola who has repeatedly insisted the race is not over.

“Why should we lose the belief? I said before we are going to lose points,” Guardiola said.

“The Premier League is so difficult. Now the positive thing is that people will say the title race is not over, and that’s good for our side. It’s not over. It was not over two weeks ago and it will not be over in three weeks.

“I would like to be 45 points in front of Liverpool and Chelsea, that would be a dream. But it’s not possible in January.”