Pep Guardiola takes charge of his 1,000th game as a manager when his Manchester City team face Liverpool on Sunday and he says he could not wish for a better fixture to mark the milestone.

“Liverpool have been the biggest rival in this country and it could not be better, to be honest,” Guardiola told reporters on Friday. “I think we pushed Liverpool to be better and Liverpool pushed us to be better. That’s for sure.

“If I had to choose one rival for this personal milestone, that would be the best.”

Guardiola’s City were involved in two titanic title battles with Juergen Klopp’s Liverpool in 2018-19 and 2021-22 – both times City prevailing by a single point.

“Liverpool, especially with Juergen, have been the biggest rival,” he said. “I always had the feeling of how much we respected each other.”

Former Spain midfielder Guardiola is regarded as one of the best coaches of all time, winning a combined 12 domestic league titles with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City as well as three Champions Leagues and numerous other cups.

Guardiola spoke of his pride at being inducted into the League Managers Association (LMA) Hall of Fame 1,000 Club alongside 38 other managers who have worked in England including Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.

“The journey, the experiences, have been unbelievable,” Guardiola, whose first game as a coach was for Barcelona B in the Spanish fourth-tier in 2007, said.

“The numbers are insane. It’s difficult to reach it, and if I started again I would not reach it. It’s been a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication, passion, love, and in that nobody beat me. I love that game, and I love to scrutinise the secrets of what we can do to opponents.

“Hopefully Sunday we can continue.”

Guardiola has won 715 out of his 999 games and was asked his thoughts on being labelled the best manager ever.

“They are completely right!” the 54-year-old joked. “The influence of every manager has been through history. Of course, I can say I’ve been part of that because the numbers explain, I’ve had success and it’s been nice to watch my teams.

“But I never started thinking ‘I want to be the best’.”

While his win rate is more than 70 per cent, Liverpool have been a tough nut for Guardiola to crack since he arrived at City in 2016, first under Klopp and now Arne Slot.

He has only won seven of his 24 meetings against Liverpool, losing ten, including home and away last season as Slot’s side dethroned City as champions.

While many of those clashes have been pivotal in title chases, Sunday’s game could determine which of the two clubs are more likely to try to chase down Arsenal who could have a nine-point lead over City by the time of kickoff at The Etihad.

“If (Arsenal) continue this way, not conceding goals or even clear chances it will be almost impossible (to catch them),” Guardiola, who has won six Premier Leagues with City, said.

“But you always expect you can be better and they can drop points. The only thing we can do is win our games to be close and they have to come here. But, of course, it’s exceptional what they are doing for two or three seasons and every time it’s closer, closer. But we are in early November.

“You don’t win the title in November, but you can lose it.”

Despite the importance of Sunday’s game, Guardiola said midfielder Rodri, who has just returned from injury, is unlikely to be risked.

LIVERPOOL

Meanwhile, Liverpool need to maintain their fighting spirit if they hope to get their Premier League title defence back on track, midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai said ahead of a trip to Manchester City on Sunday.

They are third in the standings with 18 points from ten matches, a point behind City in second; both teams are well behind leaders Arsenal (25 points).

The Merseyside club endured a torrid spell in October during which they lost six of seven games in all competitions, but they appear to be out of the doldrums after beating Aston Villa and Real Madrid, keeping clean sheets in both games.

Szoboszlai, of Hungary, said Liverpool had shown a tenacity in their hard-fought 1-0 Champions League victory over Real Madrid on Tuesday that they had previously been missing.

“Everybody could see against Real, all of us running, fighting, being there for each other, covering each other’s backs,” he told the British media on Friday. “The most important thing is to keep going like this.”

“There is a long way to go. Now it’s all about the Premier League and facing City at the weekend. We know how good they are now. The season is long. If we were seven points clear at this stage, nobody would be saying that we had won the league already.”

“Last season, when we were leading the way, we just stayed calm and kept on going because anything can happen. We just need to focus on ourselves, win our games and then let’s see what other teams are doing.”