“Motivation is still there” — Phil Foden hits back at Man City mentality criticism

Phil Foden believes the Manchester City squad have not lost the motivation to fight in the Premier League despite a recent run of poor form.

The Premier League champions find themselves on the outside looking in at the summit of the league table, sitting in fourth, five points behind league leaders Arsenal. The deficit comes after the Blues failed to win in four of their last five Premier League clashes.

What’s worse, Pep Guardiola’s side gave up leads in three of those four games. Most recently, the Etihad side gave up two goals in the dying minutes of an otherwise dominant performance against Crystal Palace to drop two points at the death.

But City forward Phil Foden is not concerned. While some in the media have questioned the City squad’s mentality, the former academy star believes they still has the minerals to hunt down their fourth consecutive Premier League title.

“Sometimes you have to roll your socks up and go again” Foden said. “It’s been tough as we’ve been playing well but not getting results we deserved, so it’s about rolling our socks up.

“Every year is going to be more challenging. You can tell that by the way oppositions set up. You see how deep they [Crystal Palace] were.

“I won’t criticise as they did a good job, hard to break down. Teams want to beat us more this year and we have to be ready, but I don’t think we’ve changed. The motivation is still there.”

While Foden is sure him and his teammates can turn things around, the hole they need to dig themselves out of could get bigger in the coming days as City are preoccupied with Club World Cup duties in Saudi Arabia.

Pep Guardiola’s side will face off with Brazilian outfit Fluminense in their first ever Club World Cup final appearance.

After the tournament’s conclusion Friday evening, City won’t return to domestic action until December 27 against a resurgent Everton side.