Pep Guardiola has accused Jurgen Klopp of indulging in disingenuous mind games ahead of Manchester City's vital trip to Anfield on Sunday.
The City manager made it plain he was deeply disappointed with Klopp after his Liverpool counterpart suggested the Manchester club had enjoyed two weeks off over Christmas in the wake of a Covid-19 outbreak which saw a scheduled game against Everton at Goodison Park postponed in late December.
Klopp implied the break – in reality, seven days without a game – helped prompt City’s recent ascent to the top of the Premier League but an unimpressed Guardiola said he expected much better from the German.
“I’m surprised,” said City’s manager. “I thought Jurgen was not that kind of manager. He made a mistake. Jurgen has to see the calendar again. We had Covid, we had one week and we played with 14 players at Stamford Bridge. When I see Jurgen I will ask him how long we had off.”
Klopp’s loaded comments came in response to a question about coping with fatigue. “Play football, recover, train, recover, using every single minute each day,” said Liverpool’s manager whose defending champions have slipped to fourth in the table, with a run of three defeats in the last six Premier League games leaving them seven points behind City.
Tough season
“We didn’t have a break – I think City had a two-week break for Covid reasons. It’s really tough. It’s a tough season; I know for some teams it looks less.”
That inference has evidently infuriated Guardiola who resisted the temptation to remind Klopp that while Liverpool enjoyed a 47-day break last summer, City were restricted to 36 days of close season holiday.
An Etihad Stadium source countered Klopp’s talk of the latter club’s supposed fortnight-long festive break by claiming the deferred visit to Goodison Park created just two free days. “We had precisely two days off around the Everton postponement,” they said. “One was the match day itself and the next was the planned recovery day which followed.”
Klopp meanwhile suggested that the weight of fixtures had left his players simply too exhausted to run properly against Brighton as they lost 1-0 to Graham Potter’s side on Wednesday night. “We faced a Brighton team who had a good idea,” said Liverpool’s manager. “And we were not ready at that moment, obviously. The players wanted to [run] but couldn’t.” – Guardian
