MY ACCOUNT
Pep Guardiola insisted he had “no regrets” with his Manchester City side, despite them failing to restore their six-point lead at the Premier League summit on Monday.
Reigning top-flight champions City headed to Crystal Palace knowing victory would see them regain their advantage over Liverpool, who defeated Brighton and Hove Albion 2-0 on Saturday.
However, Guardiola’s team had to settle for just a point at Selhurst Park as they were twice denied by the woodwork through Joao Cancelo and Kevin De Bruyne either side of the break.
That leaves Liverpool, who are four points behind and play their game in hand against Arsenal on Wednesday, with the chance to top the table by the time the two teams meet on April 10 at the Etihad Stadium should City fail to beat Burnley in their next game.
But Guardiola, who did not introduce Gabriel Jesus or Raheem Sterling off the bench in search of a winner, refused to criticise his side after they again failed to breach Patrick Vieira’s astute defence, Palace having recorded a 2-0 victory in the reverse fixture this season.
“I think they [Palace] played good,” he told Sky Sports after the game.
“There are still many games to play, we have to win a lot of games but the way we played, there are no regrets about the team. We would have preferred to win of course but the game was well played.
“We played to win the game; we created more. The way we played was amazing in a difficult stadium with the grass not perfect.”
He added: “We played a really good game. In 90 minutes, we conceded mistakes a little bit, but the way we played was really good.
“Luck doesn’t exist in football. We have to score goals and we didn’t do it. We played to score goals and concede few. We struggled a little bit.
“The guys who were playing were playing good, that’s why I didn’t make changes. We didn’t score, that was the mistake.
“The team that was there today was there before and will be there in the next game. I am very pleased with the performance and the way we played.”
