Manchester City Goalkeeper Bela Guardiola: Liverpool Is Not The Best Team In England

JAKARTA - Manchester City goalkeeper Stefan Ortega said Liverpool are not the best team from England despite being able to beat The Citizenso 2-0 at Anfield on Sunday, December 1, 2024.

Goals from Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah gave Liverpool victory over Pep Guardiola's side.

Liverpool fans took the opportunity to mock Guardiola by shouting that the coach would be sacked.

The Manchester City manager replied by pointing at six fingers, referring to the number of Premier League titles he had won while at the Etihad Stadium.

Ortega also defended his manager when asked if Guardiola had helped motivate Manchester City players to prove others wrong.

"Maybe (motivated players). Someone told me earlier that this area (Liverpool) may not be the best part of England. Yes, I think the manager reacted very well," Ortega told Talksport.

Ortega was promoted to the core line-up at Anfield considering Guardiola has crossed out Brazil international Ederson in a bid to address his team's poor performance.

The defeat against Liverpool extended City's winless streak to seven matches, six defeats and one draw. Four of them were experienced in the Premier League in a row.

Meanwhile, Pep Guardiola assessed that his reaction to Liverpool supporters was a form of affirmation that the Reds were too euphoric at the start.

In fact, the league's journey is still long and there are still many possibilities to occur until the end of the season.

Guardiola also showed evidence that in the last seven seasons, Liverpool have lost six times in the race for the Premier League title. The Reds only won the Premier League trophy in the 2019/2020 season.

"I am very proud of my six Premier League titles against the (Liverpool) team and the previous team (under Jurgen Klopp). I didn't expect Anfield to start shouting the chants during the 0-2 score that I would be fired."

"Maybe I deserved to be fired with our results. Maybe I'm still working because I won six Premier Leagues and won a lot of titles."

"They want to fire me. I hope they are better. Why don't they do it when the score is 0-1? Why didn't they do it last season when we won the Premier League?"

"Why do they want to fire me now? I didn't expect it from Anfield, for other clubs like Brighton I can understand that."

"However, for Anfield I didn't expect this, maybe because of the respect we have. They know we have won six Premier Leagues. However, it's okay, it's part of the game," said Guardiola.

Manchester City are currently thrown into fifth position in the Premier League standings with 23 points, 11 points adrift of Liverpool as league leaders.