Jürgen Klopp says Liverpool are competing to be “the best of the rest” behind Manchester City because the Premier League title race is over.

Liverpool trail the unbeaten league leaders by 18 points after 17 games and their manager admits only a dramatic loss of form can stop Pep Guardiola’s team. Klopp also discounted Manchester United’s championship credentials, claiming José Mourinho’s side are not genuine challengers despite sitting second in the table. “This season nobody is really fighting any more for the title,” the German said.

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Klopp insists he is being realistic rather than defeatist and that finishing above United, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League, or beating City in the Champions League, remain “fantastic targets” for Liverpool. He drew parallels with the 2012-13 season when his Borussia Dortmund team finished 25 points behind Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga but lost narrowly to their arch-rivals in the Champions League final at Wembley.

“If you make your own targets because of your neighbour then you can never move on,” said Klopp of City’s flying start to the season. “If you want to have the nicer garden, the nicer garage or the nicer car then you will always be a little bit behind. You have to make your own targets and go for it. You face the other team twice a season, maybe in the FA Cup for the third time or in the Champions League for a fourth and fifth time. That’s probably possible. That’s the only moment you should be concerned about them or think about them.

“We cannot chase City, like we could not chase Bayern that season but we could have beaten them in the Champions League final 100%. We were not worse; it was an open game and nobody saw in this game a team 25 points ahead. We didn’t play a bad season, we got to the Champions League final and had some of our best moments in our life in that campaign.

“This season nobody is really fighting any more for the title. I don’t think United are. We will all try to come as close as possible but if City doesn’t have any drop then they will probably win it so does that mean all the others have to stop? To be the best of the rest could be a fantastic target. So it is to try to have the best position in the table which for us for the last – I don’t know how many years – is probably third or second.”

Liverpool, who visit Bournemouth on Sunday, are fifth in the league and their manager maintains the biggest difference between his team and Guardiola’s is not quality but consistency. He insists consecutive home draws against Everton and West Bromwich Albion is no reason to doubt Liverpool’s ability.

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Klopp added: “Yes, City are ahead of us at the moment but our performances show we could do it if we bring them often enough on the pitch. That’s what we are thinking about. I can’t imagine why we would think about things that would disturb our development. We know we could have won the last game but we didn’t. Teams ahead of us won games like this. We didn’t have a lot of situations so far this season where we say: ‘Wow, that was a lucky situation.’ Not giving the penalty, not seeing the handball, not having offside goals against us. We could still say we won 3-2 at Watford but we didn’t because of a goal that should have been disallowed. Now we have this situation.

“If we had four points more it would look completely different, we would be three points behind United. Everything is fine. I cannot make the biggest difference about drawing twice even when I don’t like the result. You cannot be that disappointed after Everton that you theoretically cannot perform in the next game. If you win you don’t celebrate for five weeks after so it makes no sense to suffer for five weeks if you draw.”

The manager has denied Naby Keïta could move to Anfield next month. Liverpool have agreed a club record £48m fee to sign the RB Leipzig midfielder next summer, paying a premium to secure his signature in advance, and Klopp confirmed the deal could not be brought forward. “No, he is a player of Leipzig,” he said. “There is an agreement with the club that he will come in June or July to Liverpool. Of all the things Leipzig have said, they said they do not have to sell any player so we don’t think about it.”