Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, has hit back at his Manchester United counterpart, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, over his comments ahead of their Premier League clash on Wednesday.
When asked about making tackles high up the pitch, Solskjaer replied: “You don’t get the yellow cards, do you? But that’s just because they commit so many players forward and you can clearly see that they’ve got them in that mould of trying to win the ball back, and they do make fouls.
“It’s up to us to play through that press, be ready enough, play one and two-touch, don’t give them time. If you spend two or three touches… it’s not my decision.”
Guardiola, in his own press conference, insisted that he wants his team to win the ball quickly. But the Spaniard stressed that he had never instructed his players to deliberately foul.
“I know exactly what I said to my players from day one to the last day.
“So when a player wants to attack, we have to be honest and of course there is contact, there are fouls, but when it happens and you arrive late and that is why there are referees, to make yellow cards or red cards or whatever they decide
“We want to do our game, sometimes it’s not possible. Sometimes it’s difficult to understand that, but the other teams play too. But I never said I’m going to do that to punish them or cancel them making having fouls. Never,” Guardiola said.
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