Pep Guardiola wants his Manchester City players to “smell” the Premier League title after insisting that the defence of their crown is in their hands.
In an unusually candid press conference, Guardiola admitted that he is looking out for and reacting to how leaders Liverpool fare week by week.
Jurgen Klopp’s side have stuttered of late, drawing three of their last four in the league, but remain one point ahead of champions City at the summit.
Guardiola believes that there is everything still to play for, with 11 games remaining and West Ham United visiting the Etihad on Wednesday night.
And ahead of West Ham's visit, the City manager dismissed concerns that injuries, fatigue and his side's fixture schedule could hamper their title defence.
Guardiola instead claimed that mentality will prove more important down the final stretch than anything else and demanded to see "desire" from his players, starting from Wednesday.
“We have the difference of one point, 33 points to play, so it’s in their hands but our hands too,” the City manager said.
“The only thing we can do is put on pressure, so they feel we are there and we are going to win and win and win.
“I don’t want to see excuses about tiredness, fixtures, schedules, or how many games. That is nothing.
“When you have the illusion to fight until the end, to retain the title, the power and the energy to give you that, it is higher than any excuses you can find.
“We have to run tomorrow and beat them, and after that beat them again. In the last two months the mentality makes the difference.
“People say about this player or the other one. It doesn’t matter. We have a deep squad, we have a good enough players, a second team too.
“I want to see tomorrow the desire that we really, really want to win this title. I want to see it. I don’t care about the way we want to play or the other things.
“I want the ‘smell’ in the locker room. I want to ‘smell’ in the beginning of the game, during the game, with our fans, now when one competition is over, really we want to win this title.
“I want to see their faces tomorrow, my players. After the game I’ll tell you if I saw something special or not.”
