‘It’s not a surprise’ – Pep Guardiola responds to Jurgen Klopp’s Man City comments

Pep Guardiola says he was not surprised to see Jurgen Klopp’s comments about Manchester City’s spending in the build-up to their defeat at Anfield.

Klopp said before Liverpool’s 1-0 win that his team could not compete with the financial might of state-owned clubs including City, Newcastle United and Paris Saint-Germain.

The Liverpool boss said nobody could compete with City and that his club “cannot act like them”, referencing the signing of Erling Haaland this summer as adding the best striker in the world “no matter what it costs”.

City were unhappy with the German’s comments but speaking at a news conference on Friday, Guardiola said they did not come as a surprise.

“Firstly, it’s not a surprise because it is not the first he has said it in the last five or six years,” the Spaniard told reporters in his pre-match presser, as relayed by The Telegraph.

Guardiola was also pressed on whether he was fed up with the same old comments being aimed at City into his seventh season with the club, but only responded “it is what it is”, before turning talk to facing the Seagulls again.

Klopp claimed Liverpool were no longer in the title race following their 3-2 defeat at Arsenal on Oct. 9 but since then they have won back-to-back games in the Premier League against City and West Ham.

It has closed the gap between City and Liverpool to seven points and Guardiola says the turnaround shows he was right to take Klopp’s comments with a pinch of salt.

“It looks like with my statement I believe more in the Liverpool team than their manager,” said Guardiola.

“It’s just 10 fixtures, the World Cup in the middle and a lot of games to play, Europe involved and cup competitions involved, injuries involved.

“I said before, when we have six or seven games left, yes. When it is just 10 games, one thousand million things can happen. I’m only concerned with Brighton in the future.”