Pep Guardiola taunted former Manchester United players Patrice Evra and Dimitar Berbatov after feeling slighted by criticism of Manchester City's character in the Champions League.
The Blues conceded three goals in quick succession to turn certain victory in their Champions League semi-final to defeat against Real Madrid, prompting inquests into how the collapse happened. The character and personality of the City side was brought into question by several pundits, with Evra particularly scathing.
Guardiola had already returned some friendly fire to the former French defender, suggesting that he could be saying things to curry favour with United. And after City have bounced back with two wins and ten goals from their last two games to put them within touching distance of the Premier League title, the Catalan brought up Barcelona beating United in the Champions League final to illustrate his point about character not being measured in individual games.
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"The answer is easy, it’s the same character and personality that lost in Madrid that we have had for the last years," he said. "Specialist former players like Berbatov, Seedorf and Evra and these types of people weren't there - I've played against them, and I didn't see this kind of personality when we destroyed United in the Champions League final.
"You cannot have personality because you concede two goals in one minutes after you have chances to score? And after the last four games we scored 19 goals so we have incredible personality and these kind of things? I'm sorry but I completely disagree. Personality is what we have done in the last five years every three days in all competitions."
Guardiola also used the argument to praise Liverpool for their season. Jurgen Klopp's team have already won the Carabao Cup, are in the FA Cup final this weekend and the Champions League final at the end of the month - as well as being one point off City at the top of the Premier League table.
There is respect between the two rivals, and the City boss gave them credit for their campaign however many trophies they end up with.
"Maybe Liverpool is going to win all four titles or maybe just one but I'm going to say that they don't have personality and character, they didn't do an incredible season even when they lost the Premier League by one or two points to us?
"They don't have character and personality? Of course they do and are good. Sometimes, football is like this and it just happens.
"We cannot control many things but when you always arrive in the last stages for four or five years, chapeau. This is incredible. We arrive until the end playing good because otherwise you don't arrive. This is the most important thing."
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