Fudgesickles!
Pep Guardiola was like a bull at half-time during his side’s Champions League exit at the hands of Liverpool.
Manchester City were gliding serenely through the 2017/18 season when they happened upon the two old glory-hounds of English football, Liverpool and Manchester United. Within the space of seven days they have lost three games, conceded eight goals and are out of Europe at the quarter-final stage.
The league title is still theirs’ for the taking but they face Tottenham next and could yet be in for some more reminders of their footballing mortality.
At the Etihad Stadium, on Tuesday, City needed to overturn a three-goal deficit against a Liverpool side that had rattled them at Anfield the previous Wednesday. They hit the front after only four minutes, through Gabriel Jesus, and should have went into the break 2-0 up.
In the 40th minute of the game, Leroy Sane bundled into the net after James Milner had deflected the ball into his path. The goal was wrongly disallowed for offside by referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz and his officials.
At half-time, several City players remonstrated with Lahoz before Guardiola intervened. Initially acting as peace-maker, the Spaniard then wagged his finger like an outraged parent who has discovered their child has been dusted up by some ne’er-do-well ruffians.
Egque Mouriño no sabe perde egque Guardiola zabe comportase egque…… pic.twitter.com/oHW8RWXUsw
— mi verdad (@kusetismo) April 10, 2018
Guardiola stalked off with his City brood but he did not emerge for the second half. Lahoz, the same referee that denied Sergio Aguero a stone-wall penalty against Monaco last season, had enough of the back-talk and sent him to the stands.
Following his side’s 2-1 [5-1 aggregate] defeat, Guardiola told reporters of his exchange with the referee.
“I said it was goal, I didn’t insult him. I was polite, I was correct, but Mateu Lahoz is a special guy, he likes to be different, he likes to be special.
“I know what happened in Monaco last season so he is a referee whenever people see the things, he will see the opposite. It’s too much to send me off because I didn’t say any wrong words.
“I just said, ‘It’s a goal, the ball came off Milner’.
“He said, ‘Oh, the pass came from Milner?’ And I said, ‘Yes, it came from Milner. It is not offside’.”
“If we go to 2-0 against that side it is a little bit different,” Guardiola added.
“The first goal from Salah in the second half made us change the way we played and we were tired. But I know him (Lahoz) from Spain so I could imagine that. We spoke about that. We know him. The players felt it.”
At that, the City boss stopped explaining himself and stressed that Liverpool had fully deserved to go through.
