Jurgen Klopp took a cheeky pop back at Pep Guardiola with the barbed jibe: “I promise not to mention tactical fouls!”
Liverpool manager Klopp was responding after comments from his rival at the weekend which appeared to stoke up the mind games of the titanic clash with Manchester City at Anfield on Sunday.
Bizarrely, Guardiola attacked Reds forward Sadio Mane of “sometimes diving” just seconds after his own club’s win over Southampton last Saturday and Klopp admitted he was not impressed.
“I am not sure if Pep spoke in that moment about Sadio or the team – both is not too nice to be honest,” said Klopp.
“Somebody showed it to me because I had to see it as everybody told me about it…I couldn’t really believe it to be honest. Then I saw it.
“I am not too sure if I want to put oil on the fire. I am not interested in these kind of things. And I promise not to mention tactical fouls.
“That is maybe already too much, but that is the only thing I say about it.”
Guardiola is clearly already focused on the threat of Mane and his potential to cause havoc in the City penalty area, with the Liverpool forward’s tally of 10 goals already this season.
His latest was the stoppage time winner at Villa last Saturday, soon after he was booked for simulation but Klopp dismissed the claims he is theatrical in the box.
“I can say Sadio is not a diver,” said Klopp, speaking ahead of tonight’s Champions League clash with Genk. “In the Villa game he got contact and went down.
“Maybe it was not a penalty but there was contact. All the other penalties were penalties because he was in that situation.
“I am 100 percent sure if something like this happened for Manchester City they would want to have penalty because somebody kicked their player in the box and that’s a penalty. “But I am absolutely not in a Man City mood at the moment.”
Klopp also seemed to take a pointed dig at Guardiola when he openly wondered why the City boss was talking about Liverpool seconds after his game finished at the weekend.
“I have no clue,” he said. “Do I get asked as well as much about Man City? I don’t know. After our game I really had no clue what the other Premier League results were. I didn’t think for one second about the other games. That is the truth.”
