A Manchester City club doctor swiftly deleted a tweet slamming Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp in the aftermath of the Reds’ shocking defeat to Leeds United at Anfield.
The Merseyside outfit continued their wildly inconsistent start to the campaign as Crysencio Summerville guided home a dramatic winning goal for Jesse Marsch’s men after Rodrigo and Mohamed Salah had exchanged blows in the first-half.
Defeat - already the Reds’ fourth of the campaign in the Premier League alone - leaves Liverpool languishing in ninth place with 12 games having been played.
They now seem highly unlikely to be competing with regular title rivals Man City for the domestic crown this term with already 15 points between the two sides.
In the aftermath of Liverpool’s latest reverse, a post appeared on the Twitter account of Dr Shoaib Amaan, a club doctor with Pep Guardiola ’s men. It read: “Don’t forget to change the time tonight, Klopp’s going back”, and was accompanied by a winking emoji.
The tweet was very quickly deleted with it being understood that Amaan has claimed a friend posted it whilst he was away from his phone and deleted the tweet as soon as he realised. Whether that is the case remains to be seen but the incident is just the latest in an ever-growing list of tense clashes between both Man City and Liverpool.
The pair have of course been in constant showdown over the last few seasons having shared the Premier League crown between them since the 2017/18 season.
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The latest tussle on the pitch stirred even more bad blood with Klopp pointing to City’s spending power ahead of the game, whilst he was also red carded in the closing minutes of the Merseysiders' 1-0 victory at Anfield following a bad-tempered affair.
Guardiola was seemingly hit by a missile thrown by one of the Anfield crowd and during the aftermath, Klopp has claimed that the clubs would never be “best friends”.
Speaking about his comments about City’s funding, the German said: “I’m not sure we have to be best friends with other clubs, to be honest.
“I don’t think anybody wants to be best friends with us. I never heard about that at least. It’s completely normal competition. Again, it started here with a question, I answered it and all the rest was made of it.
“I know what I thought when I said it, and I thought I put it all into perspective and said how much I respect everything that they’re doing. Then obviously it was still not right for some!”
Liverpool will of course be aiming to get back on track ahead of the World Cup with upcoming games against Tottenham Hotspur and Southampton. In the meantime, City will be aiming to seize top spot from Arsenal over the next few weeks with clashes against Fulham and Brentford.
