Gary Neville has backed Manchester City to win the title this season and compared Pep Guardiola's 'cantankerous' attitude to that of Sir Alex Ferguson.
City find themselves five points short of table-toppers Arsenal having played a game more, following a dramatic clash at the Emirates in which Mikel Arteta's side beat Manchester United 3-2. Guardiola got his side back on track with a comfortable 3-0 win against Wolves on Sunday, but the Spaniard has been notably confrontational recently, in particular his scathing criticism of players and fans after Thursday's win against Tottenham.
The true reason behind Guardiola's decision to call his players out for lacking 'guts' and 'desire' will likely run much deeper than meets the eye, but the City boss is a master in the psychology involved in a title race and extremely careful with his choice of words. In that respect, he mirrors former United manager Ferguson, who mastered the art of winning titles off the pitch during his near 27-year-spell at Old Trafford according to Neville.
ALSO READ: Player ratings as Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland star vs Wolves
"They’re a massive powerhouse, Manchester City and Pep Guardiola," Neville told his podcast. "You can imagine them sitting there tonight not being too fazed by this.
"Pep Guardiola has got the mentality that Sir Alex Ferguson and Kenny Dalglish had – great managers and great personalities that get a bit chirpy sometimes. They can become very difficult at times when things aren’t quite going their way and they’re being questioned.
"I said on Thursday while on commentary [for Man City vs Tottenham] that it felt like sometimes these great managers get bored winning the same way. They like to try different things to prove themselves again, which involves redesigning how they see the game.
"I’ve seen that with Sir Alex Ferguson and with others. It comes from a good place but they can become quite difficult, cantankerous – and that’s where I feel Pep is at this moment. He knows there’s a fight on in this second half of the season. I do think City need to have that consistency. Arsenal have seven who have played every game but City seem to change their back four every single week.
"Sometimes that is through injury but there is a lot of tinkering going on. They’re in a proper title race here. They’ve been in them before and come through but they’re well behind here. They could be eight points behind if Arsenal win their game in hand but they still have to play them twice.
"The reason I say Arsenal won’t win the league is because they’ve not won it for 20 years and the majority of these players haven’t won it yet. They need to prove they can go through the second half of the season that they can win the league."
READ NEXT
