Pep Guardiola issues defiant response to Man City’s 4-game losing streak

• Pep Guardiola says he won’t back down from Man City challenge after Brighton defeat
• Latest loss follows failures against Tottenham, Bournemouth and Sporting CP
• Cityzens now trail Premier League leaders Liverpool by five points

Pep Guardiola says he will not back away from the challenge of reversing Manchester City’s fortunes after they fell to a fourth defeat in a row at Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday night.

Erling Haaland had put the Cityzens ahead on the south coast but a second-half comeback from the Seagulls saw them claim all three points, leaving the visitors trailing Premier League leaders Liverpool by five points.

The loss followed failures against Tottenham Hotspur, Bournemouth and Sporting CP, but Guardiola insisted he is ready to fight to turn things around.

He said: “Normally people lose games. Always a first time in your life. This is my challenge, our challenge. I like to face it. I will not step back at all, less than ever. More than ever I want to do it and we will try again.

“When we lose, I am here, but it looks like my arguments are excuses. This is how I feel. When I play bad, I’m the first to say I don’t like it, but I don’t have that feeling.”

City have big competition for the league title they have won the past four seasons in a row and Guardiola claimed that while fans and pundits are keen to see his side’s period of dominance come to an end, he will not allow champions to give up their crown so easily.

He added: “[Our era coming to an end] is what the people want. It’s normal, we won a lot, it happens. I’d like all the squad to fight and if someone [wins] it, okay, congratulations. Not give it away because we are not there. I have that feeling, we are not there, we cannot do it every three days with the situation we have.

“We need [players] to do it but no we don’t have it. Is the era going to come to an end, for sure, it’s not eternal. For the next 56 years City are not going to win every game in the Premier League, that’s for sure, but try to be there, why not, this is what I would like. I see the players training and the way they started in the first half and started the game in Lisbon and said, ‘We are going to do it again and again’ but the reality is it is not enough.

“In this business you have to win games and we are not winning games. Of course we have to change it and the players know it, but that will help us to be more focused, have the desire to come back for the players to do it, and we will see. What is going to happen is going to happen.”