Dejan Lovren says Liverpool are in a three-way battle for the Premier League title – and is under no illusions regarding the task of dethroning champions Manchester City.

The Reds continued their best start to a league campaign with a 3-1 win over Manchester United on Sunday at Anfield.

Jurgen Klopp's side remain unbeaten after 17 games and lead the table by a point ahead of City, with Tottenham Hotspur a further five points adrift.

City bounced back from their first defeat of the league campaign at Chelsea by beating Everton at the Etihad on Saturday to temporarily take over top spot.

And Lovren acknowledges Pep Guardiola's men remain the team to beat.

“I'm not sure that they have any weaknesses,” said the Reds defender. “Last year they won by 19 points. They know how to manage even when they lose.

“They also lost one or two games last year. Still they managed to be 19 points ahead.

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“It doesn't mean anything. There are so many games in front of us and in front of them. It will be a tight race and it's not only City. Tottenham is only a couple of points behind.

“You cannot sit and enjoy and say: 'We have five or six points in front of everyone'. It doesn't work like that. Every game for us is a final.”

Liverpool have the chance to open up a four-point gap on City when they travel to in-form Wolverhampton Wanderers on Friday night.

Lovren, though, has echoed the words of several team-mates in choosing to ignore Guardiola's side.

(Image: Alex Broadway/Getty Images)

“Look, there's a competition,” he said. “This is what we want, but we don't look at who is in front of us or behind us.

“It's just about us. It's more about how we train, how we do on the pitch and the result will come. There are quite a lot of games still to go but we go game-by-game.

“City won on Saturday so on Sunday we had pressure. It can be from both ways a positive thing. We will not look back, we will just look forward.”

Lovren was making only his fifth Premier League appearance of the season at the weekend.

With Trent Alexander-Arnold and James Milner joining Joe Gomez and Joel Matip on the sidelines, Nathaniel Clyne was given a first league start of the season at right-back.

And Lovren believes the impressive performance from the England international underlines how Klopp now has a squad of players capable of stepping in at short notice.

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“I think there are quite a lot of players who have been for a couple of seasons now with Jurgen,” he said.

“We know and he knows what we need to do so there's not too much to say, especially for Clyney.

(Image: (Photo by Matthew Peters/Man Utd via Getty Images))

“When you look back, he didn't play for I don't know how many months and he did a fantastic game.

“This is important, and of course it's important to keep this momentum and to enjoy this moment.

“Hopefully there won't be many injuries because we need everyone. Today, even the 25th player is important.”

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Liverpool are the only Premier League team still unbeaten this season and capable of matching Arsenal's Invincibles of 2003-04.

“Hopefully we can be unbeaten until the end of the season,” said Lovren. “Of course it will be a challenge but this is what we want, this is why we came here to Liverpool, because we know we can do it.

“Is it possible? Arsenal did it before so why not?"