Pep Guardiola believes Manchester City will need well over 90 points to beat Liverpool to the Premier League title.
The champions have a nine-point lead over the Merseysiders at the top of the table with 14 games of their campaign remaining.
Liverpool do have a game in hand but their manager Jurgen Klopp dampened suggestions his side could put City under pressure after their victory over Leicester on Thursday.
Yet with the Reds – who clocked up 99 points in winning the title two years ago and 97 in finishing runners-up in 2019 – still capable of reaching 96 this term, Guardiola remains wary of their power.
He said: “We have made an incredible run in the Premier League – 14 games, 13 victories and one draw, that is fantastic.
“And Liverpool are still there around the corner, that shows how good our opponent is.
“If we want to fight to win the Premier League, we will have to win an incredible amount of points against these opponents that we have faced in the last seasons many times. There is no doubt about that.
“The margin to Liverpool is nothing. We have to win a lot of games – a lot – with many points, more than 90 points, to arrive at 95 or 96, to be champions. I’m pretty sure of that, definitely.”
City continue to earn plaudits and Guardiola is constantly striving to improve, but he claims he could never achieve perfection.
“Never a team will be perfect,” he said at a press conference. “We are not perfect, we are far away from being perfect because as human beings we are imperfect.
“Perfection doesn’t exist in sports, especially in football, which is not an individual sport. Many things can be adjusted.”
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