Manchester City's injury crisis proved costly as the champions' 32-game unbeaten Premier League run came to a surprise end with a 2-1 defeat at Bournemouth on Saturday, but coach Pep Guardiola preferred not to use injuries as an excuse to use.

The defeat saw City drop to second place, two points behind Liverpool, who recovered to beat Brighton & Hove Albion 2-1.

“I don't know what would have happened. I would like to tell you if these players were (not injured) we would have won, but nobody knows,” Guardiola told reporters. “The boys are giving everything, but not enough to compete against this team at this moment.”

City's defeat followed a midweek defeat at Tottenham Hotspur in the fourth round of the League Cup.

And Guardiola said his team paid the price for their lack of intensity as Bournemouth won with goals from Antoine Semenyo and Evanilson

“We couldn’t keep up with the intensity,” he said. “All the situations with the long balls, we couldn’t win it.

“And if you don’t win these types of balls against Semenyo and others, our center backs and strikers have to defend deeper.”

“We have players with rhythm and the other players lack rhythm because we couldn't train due to injuries. But we knew.”

On Friday, Guardiola said he had urged his stars to play in pain “like Rafael Nadal” and feared he might only have 11 senior players fit for the game against Bournemouth.

City were already missing Jack Grealish, Rodri and Oscar Bobb, and in his pre-match interview Guardiola said Rúben Dias and John Stones would also be “out for a while”.

Captain Kyle Walker was one of several players who were not expected to feature on Saturday but were in the starting line-up, while Kevin De Bruyne was back on the bench after a lengthy injury layoff.

“Kyle hasn't trained one session with us in 16 days, he's put in incredible efforts,” Guardiola said, adding that several other players were “problems”.

“(But) it’s not just about that,” the City boss added. “They (Bournemouth) were difficult to play against in the first half, we were much better in the second half.”

Walker said if City had been lucky enough to have more healthier bodies, several struggling players might have had a break.

“Probably ideal, but we’re not in that position,” he said. “We’re not using that as an excuse, you have to give full credit to Bournemouth.”

City have little time to recover as they travel to Lisbon to face Sporting in the Champions League on Tuesday.

“It’s the schedule we were given, no excuses,” Walker added.

Bournemouth's victory was the first victory over City in the south coast club's history, and the Cherries fans at the Vitality Stadium cheekily shouted: “Can we play you every week?”

“I'm very satisfied. It’s one thing to beat City, but it’s another to play better,” said Bournemouth coach Andoni Iraola. “We played without fear, tried to apply pressure when we could and defend when necessary.”

“You know you have to be at your best (to beat a top team) and wait for them not to have their best day.”

Information from Reuters contributed to this report.