LONDON - Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola congratulated Liverpool and manager Jurgen Klopp on winning their first league title in 30 years, but was left ruing some earlier results that gave the Reds the chance to end their drought.
Needing a win to keep their extremely slim chances of retaining the Premier League title alive, Guardiola's side lost 2-1 away to Chelsea on Thursday despite a superb free-kick goal by Kevin De Bruyne.
"Congratulations for Liverpool fans, the manager, the players. Well deserved, good champions," Guardiola told a news conference at Stamford Bridge.
"This season we dropped points at the beginning, some unfairly and some because we made mistakes like today. We've got to be more consistent," the 49-year-old explained as he looked back on the season.
"Two seasons ago we were 25 points in front of Liverpool and the next season they recovered. Now we've got to recover."
Christian Pulisic had given Chelsea the lead and they secured the win through a Willian penalty after Fernandinho was sent off for handling the ball on the goal-line.
"It is not easy to attack Chelsea with their physicality in their team. Unfortunately we conceded mistakes and at this level against this quality it is difficult. We played until the end with a huge personality," Guardiola said.
The Spanish coach added that he was proud of his side, who will host newly-crowned champions Liverpool in their next league game on July 2, and that they would learn from their mistakes.
"We can now say the last ten competitions we played, we won eight titles. That's never happened before in this country. You cannot win all the time," he said.
"We have to take a little bit of perspective, be humble and say we can't win all the time. We have to learn to avoid this situation again."
Meanwhile Chelsea manager Frank Lampard, who won three Premier League titles as a player at Chelsea, congratulated Liverpool in a news conference and said it was up to other clubs to match them and Pep Guardiola's City.
"I think for the last three seasons, themselves (Liverpool) and City have been out on their own pretty much, and that's a lot of work," he said.
"It's a gap that we want to try and breach, we want to move up towards - they are two of the best teams in the world. Again, credit to Liverpool for what they've done," Lampard added.