Pep spoke to three other Saints players

PEP Guardiola gave at least three other Southampton players the same message that Nathan Redmond received.

The FA want the City manager’s observations on the post-match incident that Guardiola admitted he was out of control for, despite both parties giving the same account of what was said.

Southampton’s defensive approach took the City manager by such surprise that he told Oriol Romeu, Mario Lemina and Virgil Van Dijk too.

“They have amazing players,” he said on Friday. “Van Dijk, Hoedt, Soares, Redmond, Bertrand, Long, Boufal – they all have quality.

“I said to the players ‘be careful, they are really good’. Even now I think the same.

“They have one of the best teams in the Premier League. But if they decide to play like this I am not the right guy to say if this is right or not.

“My emotion was there because of how I celebrated, scored the goal after 96 minutes. I said the same to Romeu and Lemina and Redmond.”

Responding to a suggestion that speaking to the opposition players was disrespectful to Mauricio Pellegrino, Guardiola said: “Never in my career, on or off the pitch, was I disrespectful about what they believe they have to do to beat me.

“It’s the same as I do to beat them. I saw many Southampton games – he can play the way he played but he can play completely different.”