Pep Guardiola praises Man City four-goal hero Jesus but admits that ‘nothing changes’ in title race

Pep Guardiola last night compared his four-goal hero Gabriel Jesus to legendary Barcelona striker Hristo Stoichkov and said decisions about his long-term future at Manchester City must be parked until the end of the season.

‘The energy Gabriel has in his movements is similar to Stoichkov,’ said Guardiola, who played with the Bulgarian at the Nou Camp.

‘If there is one person in the world who deserves games like this, it is Gabriel. I don’t know anyone who isn’t happy for him.

‘The assists were fantastic but he has to be there. When you behave like him, life and football rewards you. He doesn’t need to score four goals for me to know he has this incredible ability. He will have a long and successful career.’

Whether that is at City remains to be seen. Despite his goals in a 5-1 win against Watford, Jesus is not assured of regular first-team football and has been linked with a move to Arsenal in order to boost his Brazilian World Cup hopes.

However, Guardiola warned his former No 2 Mikel Arteta at the Emirates: ‘Gabriel is our player. He belongs to Manchester City.

‘Players are happy when they play every game. Nobody knows what will happen at the end of the season and now I don’t care because we have many big games in the final month.’

Guardiola revealed he took off Kevin De Bruyne early to let him rest ahead of Real Madrid on Tuesday. ‘Kevin has been playing a lot of minutes but is playing with some disturbing things in his ankle,’ said the City boss.

‘But if it had been 2-1 and not 5-1 I wouldn’t have taken him off.’

Watford boss Roy Hodgson refused to concede his team are down but accepted they now face an uphill task, seven points from safety with only five games left.

‘I (won’t) say it is a nailed-on relegation but I can’t deny we need good results back-to-back,’ he said.

‘If we were going to have any hope against City, we had to keep a clean sheet for a period of time. Conceding a penalty one minute into the second half took the game out of our reach and then you are looking into the abyss.

‘A 5-1 defeat can’t do the players’ confidence any good. Heavy defeats weigh heavily on how people feel about themselves.’

Hodgson said he hadn’t sought or received assurances from the Pozzo family that he would be asked to stay on if Watford were relegated but he understood the club wanted to keep winger Ismaila Sarr.