Give me a break… Pep has a pop

again. We had Covid, we have one week and we played with 14 players at Stamford Bridge [on January 3].

“But maybe I’m wrong and it was not two weeks, it was three or four weeks. Tomorrow when I see Jurgen I’ll ask how many weeks or days were we off!”

Klopp complained that Liverpool had not enjoyed a similar break since Christmas Day – a period during which they have won just two games in eight while City have gone unbeaten.

“We haven’t had a break

– City had two weeks for Covid reasons,” he said. “It’s a tough year. Some teams it looks less, but for us, it’s tough.”

City had 11 fewer days off than Liverpool during the break between seasons, taking into account their Champions League commitments in Portugal. And while Guardiola was clearly irked by Klopp’s comments, he dismissed them as an attempt at mind games, stressing his mistake would be amicably resolved at Anfield when their two sides meet tomorrow.

“He knows it’s not true, come on! Nobody in the Premier League has had two weeks off! Everyone knows it,” he said. “Some of them with that kind of situation do it for a purpose but I didn’t expect he would do it. I thought he wasn’t that type of guy – but if he did it, OK.”

Liverpool’s boss has greater worries than Guardiola’s correction to deal with at the moment, having seen his team slip seven points behind Guardiola’s trailblazers.

Victory for City at Anfield tomorrow would put them 10 points ahead of Klopp’s men with a game in hand.