Pep Guardiola said he saw Manchester City's "bright future" despite watching his young team lose to Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

Liverpool took a big step towards the Premier League title with a 2-0 victory on Sunday. Guardiola left the experience of Rúben Dias, Mateo Kovacic, Ilkay Gündogan and Bernardo Silva on the bench in favour of a team with an average age of just 24.7-years-old.

City included three 20-year-olds -- Rico Lewis, Savinho and Abdukodir Khusanov -- in the starting XI and, despite the result, Guardiola said he was impressed.

"I saw a bright future," Guardiola told the BBC.

"Other than Kevin [De Bruyne] and Nathan [Ake], they are the future of this club in the next years, with others who will come in future windows.

"It was a good game. Tight game in the first half. First half it was more open and in the second half they defended very deep. They always have the threat but it is not easy to control it. Big compliment to them but I am very pleased with the way we play."

The result leaves City 20 points behind Liverpool in the table and Guardiola's team have plenty of work to do in order to close the gap and challenge for the title next season.

Asked what the biggest difference between the two side is right now, Guardiola told ESPN: 'You can see it in the table, they've picked up a lot of points, we've lost a lot when we couldn't have.

"As for today, I have few things to say, we got to the touchline a lot, the winger was brilliant, but we lacked the quality to be able to resolve [the moves]."

City were without Erling Haaland again because the knee injury picked up during the 4-0 win over Newcastle.

The striker was kept on the bench against Real Madrid in midweek and was left out of the squad entirely against Liverpool.

City face Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday and Guardiola is unsure whether the Norway international will be back.

"I don't know," he said. "I am not saying we didn't get the result because Erling was not there. That is unfair on the other players. We could finish more but in general it is fine."

Information from ESPN's Joao Castelo-Branco contributed to this report