Pep Guardiola acknowledges that Man City's Champions League battle will be a long one.

Manchester City will have to battle until the end of the season for a Champions League spot, according to manager Pep Guardiola, after the goalless draw against Southampton.

A top-five finish is by no means guaranteed, even though a win on the south coast would have tied City with Arsenal in second place.

Guardiola's team would likely need to defeat Bournemouth and Fulham to keep off the pursuing group of Newcastle, Chelsea, and Nottingham Forest after their FA Cup final against Crystal Palace next weekend.

"Yes, given the outcome today," he remarked. "We have three games: two league games and the FA Cup final.

"I didn't anticipate that it would be a fight to the end any different than I did a month ago."

With goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale rejecting Nathan Akanji, Savinho and Ruben Dias, and Omar Marmoush hitting the crossbar in stoppage time, Southampton repelled wave after wave of attacks, including one from Erling Haaland, who returned after missing the previous seven games.

It was the first time City had gone 26 shots without scoring since losing 1-0 to Southampton five years prior, and the first time they had lost to the bottom-place team since November 2015, when they drew goallessly with Aston Villa.

Dias, a City defender, attacked the Saints' strategy, claiming that they "just waste time the entire game, not even trying to play."

They don't even seem interested in playing or winning the game, in my opinion. All they're doing is lounging. We made every effort.

However, Guardiola went on: "Definitely not. They are free to do what they choose. We confronted them in many ways for many years here, and they chose to play that way.

It is our responsibility to break them since they belong to us. What you must do is this. We also had the opportunity.

Guardiola responded, "We have a week to think about it," when asked if Haaland would be well enough to start at Wembley on Saturday. However, his 97 minutes of play today was excellent; we did not anticipate him playing that long.

At the final whistle, St. Mary's was relieved as Southampton finally got rid of the threat of being named the joint-worst team in Premier League history.

Already relegated and at the bottom of the table, they fought to earn their 12th point of a miserable season, surpassing Derby's all-time low of 11 in 2007–08.

Even a humorous message for the Rams was posted on Southampton's official X account: "Sorry if we got your hopes up."

Saints have been so awful this season that the record has been the only topic of conversation around the club since November.

Simon Rusk, the temporary manager, quipped that he didn't know anything about the points record.

For me, it was about concentrating on the performance, but I completely understood how crucial it was for the team to battle to avoid that.

"We're feeling positive. We were aware of the task's magnitude today, and in my opinion, the job's principal was more important. We did a great job with it.

Our goal was to become a more formidable team, and today we were a bit more complete. We had a plan, and we wanted to improve on our past performance.

"When the referee blew the final whistle, it was a pleasant moment."

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