Bernardo Silva has told his Manchester City team-mates it will be “very difficult” to pull back Liverpool if they do not win Thursday’s title crunch match at the Etihad Stadium.

City are currently seven points behind the league leaders, meaning that the gap between the teams could be as much as 10 points or as little as four after Thursday’s game.

Pep Guardiola warned on Sunday night, after City beat Southampton, that it would be “almost impossible” for City to catch Liverpool if they drop points on Thursday.

City clearly know the stakes, that Thursday is effectively their last chance to save their title defence, and Bernardo Silva said as much this week. “A little bit, yes,” Silva replied when asked if Thursday was a ‘must-win’ game.

“We know the pressure is a little bit more on us,” Silva admitted. “Because if we don’t win, it will be very difficult to go after them. That’s what we will try to do. It is what we try to do every game. We will try to win the three points, especially with our fans, and we’ll try to win that game.”

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While Liverpool are currently having to deal with the pressure of leading the table, Silva said that is still better than the pressure of second place.

“It’s better to be that team than what we are right now,” he said. “We have to think about ourselves. We have to think that we have to win every game possible to try to reach them, to close the gap a little bit and that’s what we’ll try to do in the next game. We know we are seven points behind and if we win it will be only four – seven or four is very different – but we’ll put some pressure into them.”

Silva talked up how good Liverpool are, after an unbeaten start to the Premier League season.