Pep Guardiola has blamed the grass at Selhurst Park after Manchester City’s goalless draw with Crystal Palace on Monday.
The Premier League champions dominated the clash but were unable to find the breakthrough against Patrick Vieira’s team.
The result leaves Man City still at the top of the Premier League table and four points ahead of Liverpool, although Jurgen Klopp’s side still have a game in hand and will play the champions in April.
Guardiola praised his team’s display against City but after the match he complained about the state of the pitch at Selhurst park.
‘I think they [Palace] played good,’ Guardiola told Sky Sports. ‘There are still many games to play, we have to win a lot of games but the way we played, there’s no regrets about the team.
‘We would have preferred to win of course but the game was well played. ‘We played to win the game, we created more, the stats were there.
‘The way we played was amazing in a difficult stadium with the grass not perfect, we were there all the time, we had a good game.’
Meanwhile, Bernardo Silva says Man City are still in the driving seat, despite Klopp’s Liverpool being able to close the gap to a point.
‘It was a tough game, we actually played well, we controlled the game apart from one or two times. We couldn’t score and we should’ve scored,’ said the midfielder.
‘Nine games to go, but it’s still better to be in our position than in Liverpool’s and they have to play in our stadium so it’s going to be exciting.
‘It’s never easy to play at any team away in the Premier League. It’s always better to win than draw and we wanted to have an advantage of six points over Liverpool.’
