Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola admits his players 'lost control' in defeat to Liverpool

Three goals in eight minutes consigned City to their first defeat of the season

Pep Guardiola's side suffered their first league defeat of the season at Anfield (Getty)

Pep Guardiola admitted that Manchester City ‘lost control’ as three Liverpool goals in eight minutes inflicted his side’s first Premier League defeat of the season.

Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah all scored in quick succession to steal a march on City, who had previously cancelled out Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s first-half opener through Leroy Sané.

Two late City goals from Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan gave Guardiola hope of an unlikely comeback but Liverpool held out to secure a 4-3 win and end City’s long unbeaten run.

“My first words is congratulations to Liverpool for the victory,” Guardiola said in his post-match press conference. “It was a good game. They started well. We lost a lot of balls because the wide players are so aggressive without the ball and we had problems controlling that.

“After that we start to play much better. We created good chances, knowing how dangerous they are in the counter-attack, and especially in the second half we start good. We played good for 10-15 minutes until the goal from Firmino and after that we lost a little bit of our control.”

The City manager added: “We were involved in the environment of Anfield for many reasons and you have to try and be stable, especially for lessons in the knock-out games in the Champions League.”

Guardiola went on to call on his players to learn lessons from their defeat and carry them forward through the rest of the season.

“We lose that a little bit but we are still fighting, still trying and we found two goals and that’s all, so it is our first defeat,” he said.

“Especially in that league with a lot of games, after a tough two months, in four competitions, it’s difficult to maintain against good teams and not lose. These kind of things must happen. Now, we must analyse and be positive and think of Newcastle.”