Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has declared Liverpool as "winners" this season and dismissed criticism of their failed Premier League title challenge.

A new-look Reds squad had competed strongly with both City and Arsenal for the championship and were top at the beginning of last month before a run of form that has seen them take just nine points from their last seven games to finish third.

Liverpool had won the League Cup in February and were competing on four fronts until they were eliminated at the quarter-final stage of both the FA Cup and Europa League by Manchester United and Atalanta respectively.

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And Guardiola, whose side have been involved in four title battles with the Reds over the past six years, has pointed to the reason why Jurgen Klopp's side were unable to maintain their momentum over the closing weeks of the campaign.

“I saw Liverpool in the last weeks could not fight with Arsenal, but do you know the way they lose the chance to go and fight to the end?" he said. “I saw the game against Crystal Palace second half, the game against (Manchester) United - the chances they missed looked unbelievable, you could not believe it. Give me all the chances Liverpool missed, but missed without a keeper, nothing, and they missed it. And for that reason they are not fighting to the end.

“They are losers? No. They are failures? No. They are incredible, the same team that fights against us these many, many years. In the end, tell me how these incredible attacking players Liverpool has, and they don’t score a goal? For that reason, they didn’t win. It can happen.

“But what’s important with Liverpool is that they are winners because in the end they fought for four titles, being there. Playing against Atalanta - did you see yesterday (Sunday) Atalanta-Roma (Atalanta won 2-1 to become favourites for Champions League qualification)? The performance they have done, it’s unbelievable, they can beat you."

City could become the first team to win fourth English championships in a row, having last season joined Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Huddersfield Town in winning three.

That has prompted suggestions of tedium at the Premier League title race, but Guardiola responded: "It’s boring? It’s not, it’s so difficult. But before, it was the money!

“If that was the reason why, Manchester United should have won all the titles, all of them. And the second? Chelsea, all the titles. And the third? Arsenal, all the titles. Because they spend much more money in the last five or six years than us.

“They should be there, they are not there. For that reason Girona should not be in the Champions League in Spain, but they're in the Champions League, or Leicester should not have won the Premier League years ago.

“Now it’s boring? It’s not boring. It’s so difficult to be here again and again and now we want to take it.

"In February, March, April and, ‘Oh we are still there, we can do it’, and after it ignites something in all our heads, and say, ‘Guys, no team has done it, that means how difficult it is, otherwise Liverpool in the 80s, Sir Alex Ferguson and United in the 90s, Chelsea with Roman Abramovich, Jose (Mourinho), and even Arsenal with (Arsene) Wenger – they would have done it. They have not done it, because it’s difficult, it’s as simple as that."