Tuesday 17 January 2017 11:44, UK
Manchester City can still fight for the Premier League title under "the best coach in football", says Aleksandar Kolarov.
Sunday's 4-0 defeat at Everton was Pep Guardiola's heaviest as a manager in league football and left City 10 points behind leaders Chelsea with more than half the season played.
The methods which brought years of success at Barcelona and Bayern Munich are now being openly questioned by some critics, while former City defender Danny Mills told Premier League Daily this week Guardiola is at "crisis point".
Even Guardiola has doubts about his side's title chances, but defender Kolarov is confident City will come good under the Catalan and is not ready to write off the club's hopes of a third championship in six years.
He told the City website: "For all the players it is a great pleasure to play under him because he’s the best coach in the football at the moment.
"As players we can improve and we need to win more games but we are just at the beginning of a journey and I think we’ll get better and better.
"I still think the title race will go to the very last day and we have to make sure we’re involved."
Guardiola puts his side's current inconsistency down to his attacking players as much as a defence that has shipped more goals than any other in the top seven.
Kolarov agrees, and he said: "We just need to turn more games into wins because we’ve dominated some matches but not ended up winning.
"Every game is tough in the Premier League whether they are at the top or the bottom. Guardiola wants us to be 100 per cent professional in everything we do - if we want to win things, every small detail is important."
