Pep Guardiola has ridiculed Zlatan Ibrahimovic's claim the Manchester City manager's ego could hold Erling Haaland back from reaching his full potential.
Ibrahimovic claimed Guardiola's high opinion of himself could undermine Haaland, citing his own experience at Barcelona, where he played under the City boss. Guardiola signed Ibrahimovic in 2009, but offloaded the forward after just one season, choosing to build his formidable Barca side around the individual brilliance of Lionel Messi.
Ibrahimovic hit out at Guardiola in a book, claiming the Spaniard mistreated him during his time at Barca and would walk out whenever the striker entered a room.
Asked about Haaland, who has scored 22 goals in 15 games for City this season, Ibrahimovic could not resist the chance to take a fresh swipe at former boss Guardiola.
“Is Guardiola able to improve him?” Ibrahimovic asked. “That depends on the ego that Guardiola has, if he allows himself to be bigger than Haaland or not. He didn't allow me or the others to be as big.”
Quizzed for his reaction to Ibrahimovic's explosive remarks, Guardiola produced a sarcastic response, claiming the AC Milan striker was right to highlight the City manager's huge ego.
“He is right, he is completely right,” said Guardiola. “In this club, in this team, my ego is beyond every other person, every player. I don’t like it when Erling scores three goals and all the highlights are for him. I'm so jealous! Honestly, I'm so jealous!
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“I said 'Erling, please no more goals, otherwise the newspapers won’t talk about me, and just about me. He's right, he [Ibrahimovic] knows me perfectly. Maybe he can write another book.”
When it was put to him that he was being sarcastic, Guardiola doubled down on his reply and said: “No, I'm right in what I'm saying. My ego is whoosh!”
Guardiola's City side host Fulham on Saturday and can go top above Arsenal – who play on Sunday – with victory over Marco Silva's side at the Etihad Stadium.
But Guardiola is convinced the title race is still wide open, with seven teams able to win the Premier League – including Liverpool, who are ninth, 13 points behind City. “I would say Arsenal, City, Chelsea, Newcastle, Tottenham, United and Liverpool,” Guardiola added on the title race.
“Liverpool, because they have the same manager and same squad who were able to make 18 victories in a row in the past, so why are they not able to do it again? Nobody knows what's going to happen after the World Cup, there’s the transfer window and players coming back.
“These teams deserve to be there. You see how teams like United, Newcastle and Tottenham have taken a step forward. They can be there – no doubts. Newcastle have incredible physicality to the way they play and they're playing one game a week, because they're not playing in Europe.”
