Man City boss Pep Guardiola slams ‘diving’ Sadio Mane after late winner in Liverpool win
Manchester City take on Liverpool next weekend in one of the most anticipated matches in modern league history, and Pep Guardiola has started the war of words already.
The Spaniard pointed out the Senegalese star’s knack for scoring late goals, and claimed he goes down too easily.
“It’s happened a lot for Liverpool in the last years [scoring late on] it’s because he’s a special talent,” Guardiola said of Mane.
“Sometimes he’s diving, sometimes he has this talent to score incredible goals in the last minute. He’s a talent.
“If it’s one time, two times, “we were lucky, we were lucky”, but it happened in the last two seasons many, many times – they have a special character to do that.
Sadio Mane was booked for diving earlier in the game (Image: GETTY)
“We look at ourselves, we know which team we face, I think they have won 10 and drawn one… Next week we go to Anfield to try to play them.”
City are six points behind Liverpool in the league table, and a defeat next weekend would be a big step towards Klopp’s side disappearing out of sight.
But the Citizens did well to come back from behind against a Southampton buoyed by last weekend’s 9-0 defeat to Leicester.
Guardiola praised his side’s intensity in the win, admitting it wasn’t an easy three points.
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Sadio Mane scored the winner for Liverpool (Image: GETTY)
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“We did everything,” he said.
“It was so difficult to attack when they defend with 11 players. We did everything we could and in the end our intensity and our players paid off. We made a good comeback.
“We were so patient. We were aggressive. The rhythm was high from the first minute.
“Big compliments to the team it was not easy and we did it."