Keeper Ed-ing out of Liverpool clash
Pep plays down Klopp rivalry talk PLUS Anfield ‘toughest place in Europe’
EDERSON has been ruled out of City’s showdown with Liverpool at Anfield, with Pep Guardiola confirming that Claudio Bravo will play instead.
The Brazil goalkeeper suffered the muscle injury during the first half of the Blues’ Champions League draw at the San Siro in midweek. Bravo is ready to replace Ederson, the latest in a long list of injury blows to strike City heading into the biggest game of the season to date.
Guardiola said: “He is not able to play on Sunday. We have another top keeper. Claudio Bravo can do it too. He won the Carabao Cup and FA Cup with us too. He is an exceptional keeper, for us and for the Chile national team.”
PEP Guardiola has brushed off the suggestion that he has a growing rivalry with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.
As the bosses of the two best teams in England, Guardiola and Klopp have kept their relationship respectful and allowed their teams to do the talking on the pitch.
But last week’s exchange, when the Manchester City manager accused Liverpool’s Sadio Mane of diving, threatened to start a war of words.
Klopp defended his player and then suggested that City are guilty of ‘tactical fouling.’
Guardiola backed down from the row in his next press conference, in Italy in midweek, but it has stoked up passions around a match which is already tense.
A Liverpool win would see them nine points clear at the top of the table, while injuryhit City would probably be happy with a draw.
The Premier League has been spiced up by fiery rivalries between managers, principally that between Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson and his Arsenal opposition Arsene Wenger.
But Guardiola and Jose Mourinho both shied away from the toxic rivalry they had in Spain, when they were both in Manchester, consciously avoiding any verbal sparring.
Guardiola was asked whether there is a rivalry growing with the Liverpool boss and said: “When I came here I never thought about who my rival is and who I’d have to face on the pitch or in the press conference, this was never one concern in my career as a manager, never.
“When I arrived here there was enough concern to build the team, make them play good and compete for titles, in season one it was Conte, then in the next we grew as a team and Liverpool too. Maybe next season there will be another. What I was concerned with was my team getting better.”
Guardiola said that there is not enough time for his rivalry with Klopp to measure up to that between Ferguson and Wenger. “I make my hair grow in the next 20 years, because they were more than 20 years together and this is my fourth season here,” he said.
“We cannot compare anyone with Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, because they are legends at their clubs for more than two decades.”
And he praised Klopp’s record at both Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund.
“To see his team, you realise what he did in Dortmund he’s done it here, you analyse the impact as he took over a team that wasn’t a real contender to win the Premier League and he did it.
“In three or four years he built something marvellous to watch.”
We cannot compare anyone with Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, because they are legends Pep Guardiola