The Spanish coach was livid with his side’s disallowed goal (Pictures: Getty / Sky Sports)
Pep Guardiola claims Liverpool fans threw coins at him in the aftermath of Manchester City’s disallowed goal in Sunday’s heated and thrilling 1-0 win for the Merseysiders.
In a high-quality and fiery match, the reigning champions thought they had taken the lead when Alisson spilled the ball following a challenge from Erling Haaland before Phil Foden fired the loose ball into the back of the net.
After initially giving the goal, referee Anthony Taylor – who had tried to let the match flow – was called over to the pitch-side monitor to look at an incident earlier in the play.
Haaland was adjudged to have pulled back Fabinho as City won possession of the ball, though the decision seemed somewhat harsh given the way the match had been refereed up to that point.
Not long after, with Anfield now bouncing, Mohamed Salah spun Joao Cancelo and raced clean through on goal to score what proved to be the winning goal.
Guardiola was far from happy with what he felt was a discrepancy in officiating and also claimed he had been pelted with objects from the home fans when City’s goal was disallowed in what proved to be a miserable afternoon.
City felt their goal should have been allowed to stand (Picture: Getty)
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live after the game, Guardiola said: ‘The crowd tried [to throw coins/objects] but they didn’t touch me. Maybe next time they will be better.’
On the decision to rule out Foden’s goal, he continued: ‘The referee said play on, play on, play on, there were a thousand million fouls like this and this one is because we scored a goal.
‘So they disallowed because we scored a goal, otherwise it would not have been disallowed.’
He continued to make that argument in his post-match interview with Sky Sports, saying: ‘The referee decided before the game to go to Jurgen Klopp and my assistant coaches and say, “Here it’s play on, play on, I’m not going to whistle any fouls”.
‘And then it was a thousand million [times] where it was foul but not foul, foul but not foul, and say play on, play on, play on. But after we score a goal it’s not play on. So, okay.
‘If he decided, “Every action I’m going to whistle, every action I’m going to whistle” but he [didn’t].
‘He decided to [let things go], we challenged, they shouted, we had to shout more, they ran, we had to run more – but after we scored a goal they disallowed it so… this is Anfield.’
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The Spanish coach was livid with his side’s disallowed goal.