"Congratulations Liverpool, you are champions."Pep Guardiola was in sardonic mood after watching Manchester City's inexplicable defeat to Norwich City.The champions went to Carrow Road on a run of 25 games unbeaten against newly-promoted teams.In Aymeric Laporte's absence - which is set to continue for six months - John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi put in an utterly hapless defensive display.For all Guardiola's jokes, he will be a very concerned man.

There was no room for slip-ups in the title race last season, Liverpool losing just once and still only finishing second.

If it's to be that close again this time around, then City may have already lost too much ground.

Indeed, as Gary Lineker pointed out on Twitter, Liverpool's lead of five points is the biggest after five matches in Premier League history.

The Reds have won all five of their games so far, whereas City have lost to the Canaries and were denied victory over Tottenham at home by a controversial VAR decision.

Jurgen Klopp's men did suffer an early scare at Anfield when Jetro Willems turned Trent Alexander-Arnold inside out before handing Newcastle a shock early lead. 

As many predicted, though, the Magpies scored too early and then failed to withstand a Liverpool assault, the hosts eventually winning 3-1. 

It is, of course, way too early to be making any grand statements about the destination of the Premier League title, which has belonged at the Etihad for the past two seasons. 

"We’re in September, what do you have to do?" Guardiola added.

"We’ll recover, train and come back. ‘We’ve dropped five points. Tottenham, we played incredibly well. Today, in the important parts we have to know exactly what to do.

"Congrats to Norwich. The first goal was from a set-piece and the second on the counter so credit to them. It is what it is. We have to learn from this and carry on.

"Our passing was not bad... We did not have urgency in the final third that we normally have. In football you can’t always avoid mistakes.

"I don’t know how many shots we had or how many they had, but football is about goals and about what you do in the boxes."