Here are the Manchester City morning headlines for Friday, June 26.
Laporte fires warning shot at Liverpool
Liverpool might have sealed the Premier League title when Manchester City lost to Chelsea, but they won’t have it as easy next season.
That’s according to City defender Aymeric Laporte, who has vowed his team will come back much stronger for the 2020/21 season.
“We have to improve,” the centre-back told BBC Radio 5 Live , after first congratulating Liverpool on their success.
“Next year maybe we can get back to first place.
"It is never easy to accept but we will see what happens next season."
Laporte has played just 10 league games this season, due to injuries, and was sorely missed in his absence.
The 2-1 defeat at Chelsea represented the first time he has been on the losing side in a Premier League game since January 2019.
Guardiola lays out City focus for coming weeks
Manchester City’s title hopes might be officially over, but Pep Guardiola has some things to take care of before setting about reclaiming the crown from Liverpool.
City’s defeat at Chelsea made another league title in 2019/20 a mathematical impossibility, and Guardiola has half an eye on how to rebound next season, but there are still a few other significant loose ends to tie up first.
“We have still five or six weeks of competition, especially Sunday it’s important to get in the semi-final of the FA Cup and afterwards finish the Premier League to achieve qualification for the Champions League and then prepare for the second leg against Madrid,” Guardiola said , though he admitted standards have slipped this season and a response is needed ahead of the next league campaign.
“Two seasons ago we were 25 points in front of Liverpool. Two seasons later they got this distance, so now we have time to think about it and try to recover it,” he added.
Foden omission against Chelsea explained
Phil Foden has been in impressive form for Manchester City since the Premier League’s restart, scoring in the win over Arsenal and adding a further two goals against Burnley.
However, the youngster wasn’t involved at all against Chelsea, not even taking a spot on the bench at Stamford Bridge.
With Sergio Aguero sidelined through injury, some might have been worried about Foden joining him on the treatment table.
However, it emerged that the midfielder was not fully fit after two games in quick succession, rather than anything more serious.
City named a number of other youngsters in their squad for the game, including Cole Palmer, Thomas Doyle and Taylor Harwood-Bellis.
