Arne Slot makes admission about tired Liverpool trio ahead of Southampton trip​

Manchester United boss Rúben Amorim has admitted Pep Guardiola’s new contract at Manchester City is “a problem for everybody.”

Amorim has been tasked with bringing the Premier League title back to Old Trafford after succeeding Erik ten Hag as head coach.

The 39-year-old’s arrival has coincided with Guardiola’s decision to sign a new two-year contract, which will keep him at the Etihad Stadium until 2027.

Given his ambitions with United, Amorim said it is not ideal that Guardiola, who has won the league title in six of the last seven seasons, is sticking around.

“I think it’s a problem for everybody but we have so much to do we cannot focus on anybody,” Amorim said. “We just have to focus on improving our club and not focus on the other clubs. It’s amazing, if you can beat that team it’s a good sign but we are focused on Manchester United.”

Amorim, who will take charge of his first game against Ipswich on Sunday, is looking to become the first United manager to win the title since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.

Still only two weeks into the job, he said he is “not yet had the opportunity” to meet Ferguson. Despite the Scot’s unbelievable success at the club, Amorim said he is not in Manchester “to copy” the legendary manager.

“It’s not to copy someone, so I have to be me,” he said. “We have to be very demanding. This is a club that has to win things, we have to show that to our players. But it’s a different time. I cannot be the same guy that Alex Ferguson was. It’s a different time and I need to have a different approach but I can also be demanding with that different approach.”

Amorim has been parachuted into the United job following a miserable start to the season under Ten Hag.

The former Sporting CP coach, who hinted that he would have preferred to stay in Portugal until the end of the season before moving on, admitted that trying to implement his methods halfway through the campaign will be tough.

“It’s so much harder to come to the team in the middle of the season because you have to get to know the players during the games,” Amorim said.

“You are talking about no national team periods to work with the players, it’s just games. It depends. If you are winning it’s a lot of fun, having a lot of games, trying to make changes tactically and winning games.

“But if you are losing you don’t have time in training to work out everything you want to work on. To improve a team, training is the most important aspect.

“Players can recover very fast but if you don’t do any exercise with that it’s really hard to do that in video or recovery training sessions. It’s really hard but we’ll try to find ways to cope with that.”

Mikel Arteta has hit back at anyone questioning Bukayo Saka‘s commitment to England by insisting he would “send an MRI scan” to prove the winger was injured during this month’s international break.

Saka was one of 10 withdrawals during England’s recent UEFA Nations League double header against Greece and Republic of Ireland, a situation which captain Harry Kane described as “disappointing” before suggesting that “it’s a tough period of the season and maybe that’s been taken advantage of a little bit.”

Saka was unable to complete Arsenal‘s 1-1 draw at Chelsea prior to the international break due to a thigh problem but capped a fine individual performance as he opened the scoring in Saturday’s 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest at Emirates Stadium.

After Thomas Partey and teenager Ethan Nwaneri — with his first Premier League goal — completed the scoring in a comfortable win, Arteta defended the contrast in Saka’s absence for England and fine form for Arsenal.

“Well, we can send an MRI scan, it’s very simple,” Arteta said. “That’s a communication that was very clear between the medical staff of Arsenal and the England national team.

“He hasn’t done anything, he was away and needed time to heal. He’s done one training session.”

Arsenal secured their first league win since Oct. 5 to generate some positive momentum ahead of a difficult week which continues with Tuesday’s Champions League trip to Sporting CP.

“I sensed a great energy in the last 48 hours,” Arteta said. “The way everybody came back, I sensed a great togetherness and desire to change the situation and what has been a different period for us with all the situations that we had to come across. And the team is there straight away from the beginning. It was a flow, it was a dominance, there was an enthusiasm about it. That is what I demanded.”

Pep Guardiola has suggested that if Liverpool beat Manchester City at Anfield next weekend his team could already be out of the Premier League title race.

City lost their fifth consecutive game in all competitions and third straight league game with a heavy 4-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.

Guardiola’s side face Feyenoord in the Champions League on Tuesday before travelling to Anfield five days later.

Liverpool can move eight points clear if they beat Southampton on Sunday and Guardiola was asked after losing to Spurs whether an 11-point gap — if City lose to Arne Slot’s team — would be too much to overhaul even at this stage of the season.

“Yeah, it’s true,” he said. “We’re not thinking about winning or losing [the title], we are not in the situation to think about what is going to happen at the end of the season.

“If in the end we don’t win it’s because we don’t deserve it. We won it in the past because we deserved it.

“What we have to do now is [beat] Feyenoord. That is the most important thing — first for the qualification for the CL [Champions League] — and step by step the players will be better.”

Not only have City lost five consecutive games for the first time in 18 years, they’ve also conceded 14 goals during the run. Defensive injuries haven’t helped and there were more problems against Spurs when John Stones was forced off at half-time.

“We are a bit fragile right now, that is obvious,” Guardiola said.

“We have to break the results because the victories help us to be more positive and confident and we have to do it. But after eight years here I knew sooner or later we would drop. I never expected to lose three Premier League games in a row but we have been incredibly consistent again and again and again and now we cannot deny the reality that sometimes happens in football and life is here.”

Meanwhile, Tottenham are up to sixth after a blistering display of counter-attacking football. James Maddison scored twice on his 28th birthday before second half goals from Pedro Porro and substitute Brennan Johnson.

“You don’t come to a place like this expecting it is going to be as convincing as it was for us,” Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou said.

“City test you in every football way possible.

“After a really disappointing game last game [against Ipswich] we got back to our core beliefs. Credit to the lads, they were outstanding. We had to weather a storm and then grew into a game. I’m so pleased for the players. It furthers our progression.”

MANCHESTER, England — When does a blip become a crisis? Manchester City‘s losing run went from four games to five against Tottenham Hotspur, who won 4-0 at the Etihad Stadium in a blistering display of counter-attacking football.

With players back from injury and doubts about manager Pep Guardiola’s future put to bed with a new contract, the international break was supposed to be something of a reset for City. Instead, Spurs exposed the champions’ defensive vulnerability — thanks in large part to a majestic performance from Dejan Kulusevski — while Erling Haaland had an off day at the other end.

It’s too early to write off Guardiola’s team in a title race that hasn’t even started, but the Catalan coach is now further into uncharted territory.

Never before has he lost five consecutive games as a manager, and never before has he lost three straight Premier League games as City boss. They’re not quite the records he’s used to setting.

“When you lose 4-0, there is nothing to say but to congratulate Tottenham,” Guardiola said.

“We are a bit fragile right now, that is obvious. We struggled to score goals and after when they arrived they scored. We are playing a little bit in our thoughts, a little bit of negativity but this is normal.”

At first, everything seemed right in City’s world. The home fans gave Rodri a standing ovation as he showed off his Ballon d’Or for the first time. And as kickoff approached, they began to sing in appreciation of Guardiola, who signed his new two-year deal on Thursday.

For 10 minutes, City were dominant. Haaland had two golden chances to score, and it felt like only a matter of time before the Spurs goal would be breached and the floodgates would open. But maybe this isn’t the same team. Maybe it’s unfair to expect them to be with Rodri — the lynchpin in midfield — sat in the stands rather than on the pitch.

With everyone expecting an imminent Spurs collapse, it was performed, instead, by City. There were nearly 15 minutes on the clock before the visitors had control of the ball long enough to think about venturing forward. When they did, it was executed with pace and precision.

Kulusevski might never hit a better pass than the one that James Maddison guided in with a close-range volley to score his first of the night on his 28th birthday. Son Heung-min forced a fantastic full-stretch save from Ederson and then gave the birthday boy his gift with a clever reverse pass to set up Maddison’s second in seven minutes.

In the pouring Manchester rain, Guardiola took off his coat as if to send a message to his players that it was time to roll up their sleeves.

In January 2023, Spurs went 2-0 up at the Etihad before City roared back to win 4-2. There was no response this time. Pedro Porro scored a third just after half-time and substitute Brennan Johnson added a fourth in injury time to put the exclamation point on a resounding victory. It was City’s first defeat at the Etihad for more than two years and their largest home defeat in the league since losing 5-1 to Arsenal in February 2003.

“You don’t come to a place like this thinking it’s going to be as convincing as it was for us,” said manager Ange Postecoglou, who was without first-choice centre-back pairing Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero.

“City test you in every way. We got to a really strong level today. Credit to the lads because I thought they were outstanding. We knew we’d have to weather the storm which we did. It’s significant because they’ve got an unbelievable record at home.”

For the first time in a long time, Guardiola has issues to solve. Without Rodri and injured understudy Mateo Kovacic, City’s midfield of Ilkay Gündogan, Rico Lewis and Bernardo Silva were trampled into the floor by Yves Bissouma and Pape Matar Sarr. Gündogan was particularly poor. He simply couldn’t keep up with the speed of the Spurs’ attacks, although he wasn’t alone in that. Kyle Walker has looked a shadow of himself this season and he won’t want to watch a reply of Timo Werner flying past him to set up the fourth goal.

City have now conceded 14 goals in their past five games and it would have been worse if Ederson had not made three good saves. In six home league games so far this season, City have conceded the first goal in four.

Guardiola will hope that Rúben Dias — who has missed the past five games through injury — can return soon, but there was a further blow when John Stones, starting a Premier League game for the first time in more than a month, was forced off at half-time. City have a chance to break their losing run against Feyenoord in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday. Next up in the league is a daunting trip to Anfield on Sunday.

“It’s a great game to turn it around, to take three points off the team that’s sat above you,” said Walker. “But we can’t go out there and do a performance like that [against Tottenham], because we’re going to get walked over there.”

“We have to break the results because the victories help us to be more positive and confident and we have to do it,” Guardiola added.

“We cannot run away; we have to face it and try to make the next game.”

After a bruising run, Liverpool at Anfield offers the chance to prove the doubters wrong. Or, possibly, cast City further into the mire.