Pep Guardiola has hit back at Jurgen Klopp over claims that Manchester City had a two-week break due to coronavirus at the club.
Liverpool boss Klopp had suggested that City’s good form was off the back of “a two-week break for Covid reasons.”
Guardiola suggested that the German was exaggerating — the break was for eight days — and explained the situation as he saw it.
"He made a mistake, it was two months off, or three months off? No, four. Four months off," Guardiola told a press conference on Friday.
"That's why we are in top form right now. Jurgen has to see the calendar again.
"We had COVID, we have one week and we played with 14 players at Stamford Bridge, but maybe I'm wrong and it was not two weeks, it was three or four weeks. Tomorrow when I see Jurgen I'll say to him: 'How many weeks or days were we off?'
"I will tell him tomorrow. He knows it's not true. Come on! Nobody in the Premier League has had two weeks off."
Guardiola thinks the outburst was out of character for the manager.
"I'm not irritated, I didn't expect it, not from him," Guardiola claimed.
"I'm surprised. I thought Jurgen was not that type of manager, like other ones who are usually doing it. I didn't expect that comment. But maybe it was a misunderstanding from him. If he sees the calendar again he will realise it was not two weeks, it was two months."
City have won each of their last 13 games and are three points clear at the top of the Premier League table, as well as having a game in hand. City have not won in the league at Anfield since 2003.