Jamie Carragher and his fellow experts were targeted by Pep Guardiola, so the former vice captain of Liverpool responded on social media.
Following Pep Guardiola’s questioning of Jamie Carragher, a former Liverpool defender, and his Sky Sports colleagues, the Manchester City manager received a clap back.
All of this is a result of the fact that the last three Premier League champions have now lost three straight games because they gave up late goals. Despite having a game in hand, they are six points outside of the top spot after draws with Chelsea, the Reds, and Tottenham Hotspur.
Carragher understandably made the claim that the defending champions were becoming complacent after the run saw Liverpool move up into second place.
After the Spurs game he inquired: “When you’ve won numerous titles, maybe the stadium is flat, is there a feeling of maybe waiting for the business end of the season?”
“If you asked us all, I think we’d still fancy Manchester City for the title. We’ve seen this before with City, where they go on a run during the second half of the season and win 10 or 12 games on the bounce and go away from other teams. Maybe, this season, Arsenal will be stronger from their experience in those moments and we know Liverpool have been there before.”
His fellow pundits Gary Neville and Micah Richards on Sky Sports also spoke about City’s recent dip – perhaps truths Guardiola was not happy to hear.
As well as remaining confident in his side’s chances for a fourth consecutive league triumph at the end of the season, the Spaniard responded to the ex-professionals one by one.
In his press conference on Wednesday he replied: “He knows how difficult it is. Otherwise, Gary Neville would’ve won four [consecutive] Premier Leagues in the best period of Manchester United. But he didn’t do it, you know?
“Jamie Carragher never took home a victory. Not even Micah Richards won the Premier League four times in a row. Never, ever do it. It has never occurred. The likelihood of it not happening is higher than that of it happening. Only one Treble in front of us. It’s really hard to do it repeatedly. Others who haven’t done it in a very long time have what we don’t.”
He dared not bring up former Manchester United player Roy Keane, who, like Carragher, voiced his misgivings on Sunday.
When Carragher discovered the quotes late on Tuesday night, he only had one idea for responding to the City manager, and he posted this comment on X:
As pointed out in the above post, the serial trophy winners are under investigation for 115 breaches of the league’s financial rules and later failing to cooperate. A final verdict was recently said to be coming in mid-2025 – almost 16 years before the first alleged offences took place.
Carragher – like plenty of Reds legends of the era – made it to the end of their careers without winning a Premier League title. He came closest to doing so in the 2008/09 campaign behind United by four points, which was the season City were bought by Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi.
The year after his retirement Liverpool ended the season in second behind City, then managed by Manuel Pellegrini, which is one of the titles under scrutiny as part of the trial.
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