Gary Neville: Guardiola is already thinking of new Man City team

Gary Neville says Liverpool are now 'strong favourites' to win this season's Premier League title after a 2-0 win in Sunday's clash with champions Manchester City, who he believes now need to rebuild under Pep Guardiola.

Arne Slot's side have a nine-point lead at the top and 11 points clear of champions City, who have now lost four consecutive league games in the same season for the first time since August 2008.

Liverpool came straight out of the gate to dominate and Cody Gakpo turned in Mohamed Salah's cross to give them a 12th minute lead. City were fortunate not to concede more before Salah – who had missed his final penalty against Real Madrid in midweek – converted a 78th-minute spot-kick.

Arsenal and Chelsea are nine points behind Liverpool, while City have now gone seven games without a win in all competitions, losing six of them.

In his latest podcast, Neville reviews the title photo…

'Liverpool must fail four times if City wants to have a chance'

It's an incredible achievement from Liverpool. The people who appointed [Slot]the people who created the stability, the players, especially in the sense that they are behind him. It is truly incredible what we see.

None of us expected it. I think Liverpool fans expected this. They might have expected to finish in the top four, but what Arne Slot has done is absolutely brilliant and it's getting serious. It is no longer a honeymoon, but a good start to persevere for a while.

There are realistic expectations, but they will be very, very strong favorites. Nine points ahead of Arsenal, eleven points ahead of Manchester City and still four or five months to go. The title race doesn't start until April. We are only the beginning of December.

These are unusual things for me to be able to say, because normally I would never say it.

I'm not saying Liverpool will win the league. I still think there is still a long way to go. But there is no doubt that there will now be an expectation.

I would never say that if they don't win it from this position, they bottled it up. I don't believe that will be the case. I think they will have a rough patch at some point in the season.

They will drop points and the question is whether the others, Arsenal and City, can come back to life and run. Arsenal have to go and win four, five, six games.

They have winnable games but they have Man Utd, Fulham away on Wednesday and they have teams in the bottom half of the table.

If they win five or six games and Liverpool only draw two games, suddenly they are within five points and that's not the fact that Liverpool is bottling it up, it's just the fact that you've drawn two games.

There is still a long way to go, but the others have a lot of hard work to do, because Liverpool have to lose four games and City have to win every game to win the title, and that doesn't look realistic.

We are in a very different position than we thought at the start of the season. A very different position than we thought about six to eight weeks ago. It's unbelievable what has happened to Manchester City and Liverpool has gone so smoothly.

It's gone from a very good start to putting in really high-quality, authoritative performances that look very dangerous when you think about a Premier League title. Eleven points ahead of Manchester City and nine points ahead of Arsenal is dreamland for Liverpool, for Arne Slot.

And with that comes a level of pressure that there will now be an expectation that they will win the title. It will be a slightly different mentality, but it's a big week for Liverpool.

They have Newcastle away on Wednesday. They also have the Merseyside Derby at Everton next week, the last ever at Goodison Park, so that will be very special. There is still a job to be done. I don't think this is the time to get carried away and there are a lot of points to play for, but that was a brilliant performance.

I thought Liverpool would win today. City have been terrible. They looked defeated. Pep Guardiola's team selection… we can say he is a genius, he is great, he is one of the greatest minds of all time and we can say: I don't think he was right, without being disrespectful are. Just an observation.

We saw Rico Lewis play for Kyle Walker at Tottenham last weekend. It didn't work. How would Nunes work on this left side in a flat midfield four? Again, it didn't work. He replaced them both after an hour, so obviously it didn't work. From the very start of the match, things were not right for City.

I was amazed at how they behaved. But today Liverpool will be a big title favourite.

What has changed for Man City?

Rodri, we'll keep mentioning it until the cows come home, but then all of a sudden the tiredness, the tiredness, you get some bad results, and then the confidence starts to disappear.

From fatigue and exhaustion, losing players, injuries, confidence, belief, before you know it everything seems to be gone, and that's why I don't think anyone is really up against Pep Guardiola or Manchester City right now.

These are proven serial winners, these guys that we are watching in the blue shirts on the pitch today, have nothing to prove in regards to the fact that they have five and six Premier League titles, some of them.

There just comes a point where you've climbed mountain after mountain after mountain, and it just hits you, and that's what happens. All we see is a group of players who just can't do more than what they're doing right now, and it looks humiliating.

They look so vulnerable, they look broken on the pitch, the defenders are broken, the midfield players look weak, they look like they are being overrun, underworked, the attackers don't look as if they will ever score. They just don't look that dangerous, the patterns we've always seen in City are gone.

Pep Guardiola built two sensational football teams while at the club, and he will have to build a third. That doesn't mean you have to rebuild it, as in: 10 player rotations, you're probably talking about two or three, up to four players in, and two or three, four players out. They usually only use about 16 to 18 players at City, so you're talking about changing a quarter of your squad.

This Kevin De Bruyne thing is unusual, bizarre, strange. Why is he probably the best player the Premier League has had in the last decade, why isn't he there? We know he had injuries, but why isn't he there? Because he is a leader, he has authority, he has confidence, he has brilliance. So there's something going on, there's definitely something going on in the locker room, something's happening.

But Pep Guardiola is in control, he is in full control of the club, he has extended his contract and I think he is probably waiting for the January transfer window and the June-July transfer window until it reaches a point where he can build and restore. form a new team in the coming seasons.

You saw him there at the end with the six up, I quite like it. I think people might say, oh look, Pep is a bit hurt, but actually he has the right to grin, he has the right to say we won six. He's not going to feel good about it, but he's gotten to a point where he's thinking, he's realizing, okay, I'm here, I've got to catch my hits, I'm going to get a clip around the ear type in front of everyone, and he has to to fight their way out.

I'm sure he will already be thinking about how to form a new team. Firstly, he will think about how they can win a Premier League title from this position. I don't think they can. This would be Pep Guardiola's biggest ever title if they win it after today. It would be beyond ridiculous if they were to win with an eleven-point deficit. Liverpool should have folded completely and City should have arrested this, which looks like a decline for this team at this point.

Can Arsenal stop Liverpool?

Arsenal are definitely still in it. Arne Slot will say Arsenal are still in it, and they will say City are too, but what annoyed me about Arsenal's game last night and Mikel Arteta, he was furious before half-time.

He was so angry when they conceded those two goals because they had been absolutely brilliant in that first half hour. They were brilliant. It was a perfect performance and then just sloppiness and team cheering. Other clubs look at this and think: persevere.

Arsenal just have to sort out little things like that and they've clearly had a good week. They are back on track. But there was one tiny, tiny bit of a hiccup last night.

They've had a stop-start at the beginning of the season. The send-offs, the injuries, the dropping of points, but it looks like they're in a position now. It's a big week. They have to beat Manchester United. They have to beat Fulham.

Then they have to look at Liverpool and think: are they going to win at St. James' Park? Will you win at Goodison Park in the latest Merseyside Derby? And if Liverpool do that, they will of course still be nine points ahead. But they may think that if they win their two games they can be seven points behind at the end of the week and that is a lot more feasible.

'Still too early for Chelsea to be a title contender'

It feels too early for Chelsea. Although they are level on points, it doesn't feel like Chelsea will get the win. I still think if anyone can catch Liverpool at the moment it will be Arsenal.

Chelsea is having a fantastic season. Enzo Maresca has a stability there that has been hard to find in recent seasons, so well done to them. Cole Palmer's goal was absolutely brilliant.

Nicolas Jackson, I'm happy for him. I never thought the problem was Jackson. I thought maybe he should sign another striker, but I thought he was a very close second.

If he was your man to fill in, you would think this is a good striker. He now goes so far that you think: do we actually need that first striker? Could he be the first striker, even if he is erratic? He is young and has made mistakes. We see quite a handful there now.

Chelsea are doing really well and their manager is well done for bringing that level of calm to their club as it has been crazy and chaotic in recent seasons. A lot of money is spent, a lot of players come in and out. Now for the first time it feels like things have calmed down. The owners will feel a little calmer.

'Man Utd still a long way away'

Obviously it was a good win [against Everton]. If he comes back in midweek and wins, Ruben Amorim will be happy. They're still a long way off, there's no doubt about that, but they've risen to the top half of the table.

They're only four or five points off the top four, which is crazy really, but I don't think they're at that level yet to give anyone confidence that they can get there.

The teams above them, especially in the top six, are well ahead in terms of performance level. But he will be happy at the end of his first week of competition.