Pep Guardiola says Man City ‘innocent until proven guilty’ after Mourinho jibe

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola reiterated that “everyone is innocent until proven guilty” as he responded to comments from Jose Mourinho about winning “cleanly and fairly”.

Towards the end of Sunday’s 2-0 loss at Liverpool, Guardiola was subjected to chants that he would be “sacked in the morning” from Reds fans and responded by holding up six fingers, to represent the number of Premier League titles he has won with City.

Two days later, when was asked about former Chelsea boss Mourinho holding up three fingers before being axed by Manchester United in 2018, he said: “I hope not in my case. Maybe in the end we are quite similar, (and I’m) like Jose. But he won three, I won six.”

Mourinho, now in charge at Fenerbahce, on Friday was quoted by Turkey’s Sporx as saying: “I want to win, but I want to win cleanly and fairly. He (Guardiola) won six trophies and I won three, but I won fair and clean. If I lost, I want to congratulate my opponent for being better than me. I don’t want to win by dealing with 150 cases.”

City were charged with 115 alleged breaches of top-flight financial rules in February 2023, and with failing to co-operate with the subsequent investigation. The club have denied the charges and an outcome is expected next year.

Asked about Mourinho’s remarks at his pre-match press conference ahead of Saturday’s trip to Crystal Palace, Guardiola said: “It was a joke. But he’s another one in the huge list that they want the team being in, I don’t know, League One or the Conference.

“I would say to Jose the same – we are innocent until proven guilty, and after that we will see what happens. It is what it is. It was completely a joke.

“I think both with our teams, him with Chelsea, myself with Man City, we can sit at the table with Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger (who won 13 league titles with United and three with Arsenal respectively), right? For the many, many titles we won.

“If I have offended him (Mourinho) I’m so sorry, but it was a joke. The fact is he has three and I have six. This is a fact. But the intention was completely fine.

“It is another one from the huge list in this country and more around the world that want us at the bottom.

“It’s OK, it’s fine. I’ve said many times wait for the sentence and everyone, especially in democracy, is innocent until proven guilty. Right? So we’ll wait, and after we’ll see.”

As well as the six league titles, City’s haul of silverware since Guardiola took charge in 2016 includes two FA Cups and four League Cups, and he has also overseen them winning the Champions League, Super Cup and Club World Cup.

Guardiola was asked if he had ever envisaged it being as good as it has been when he arrived at the club, and the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich head coach said: “No. I remember many people say ‘he wins because it’s Barcelona with Leo Messi and the other ones’, I had to prove it in England. OK, we did it.”

The result at Anfield was a sixth defeat in a seven-game winless run for City, and fourth league loss in a row – a sequence they then ended with Wednesday’s 3-0 home victory over Nottingham Forest.

The champions currently lie fourth, nine points behind Arne Slot’s leaders Liverpool, and Guardiola said: “We broke that bad run. Always it’s not easy when you don’t win for a long time, and now you break it and we have to try to continue with the players, the spirit we show, and we’ll see what happens.”

The last two matches have seen Stefan Ortega play in goal, with Ederson on the bench, and asked what the latter had to do to get back in the team, Guardiola said: “He needs the manager to select him. This is what he needs, it’s simple.”