Unfazed Pep Guardiola believes Man City will win the Premier League

Pep Guardiola’s confidence in Manchester City remains unshaken even after a three-game winless run and he believes Manchester City will win a record fourth consecutive Premier League title.

The defending champions have drawn their past three league games, against Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham, and are three points behind leaders Arsenal ahead of Wednesday’s match at Aston Villa.

“People don’t believe it already after three draws, but we feel we’re going to do it again, knowing that it is not easy because no team has done it yet,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

“My feeling today is we’re going to win the Premier League,” he said.

City have been unusually leaky in defence, conceding eight goals over those three matches as they prepare for a tough test against Unai Emery’s men, who have won their past 13 home league games in a row.

Guardiola admitted that last season’s treble winners need to tighten up at the back but said they were still not losing many games.

“The motivation is to do it better,” he said.

“I learned from where I come from that if you want to win you have to do it better than the opponent.

“We have to do much better. We have to try and not concede chances, or goals.”

City will be without suspended midfielder Rodri for the trip to Villa Park – they lost all three games earlier this season when he was previously suspended.

John Stones will be fit to return and Guardiola admitted he could push the England international into midfield in place of the Spaniard.

“We don’t deny how important he is but he’s not there, suspended, like Jack (Grealish), so we will find the best solution to compete against Aston Villa,” said Guardiola.

‘We have behaved incredibly’

Guardiola defended his team after the club were charged by the Football Association over their players’ behaviour in the final moments of their 3-3 draw against Tottenham at the weekend.

Several City stars, including an irate Erling Haaland, surrounded referee Simon Hooper after he failed to play advantage, with the Norwegian criticising Hooper in a social media post.

The FA alleged that City “failed to ensure their players do not behave in a way which is improper”.

Guardiola said he did not know how the club would react to the FA charge, but he does not believe a sense of injustice will have any effect on the game against Villa.

“We have behaved incredibly in these years, especially this season, how we behaved in our not-good results. The decisions sometimes are in favour, sometimes against (us), but we behaved even after the game.”