Carragher slams journalist as Man City boss Guardiola hits out at his Haaland comments – Football365

Jamie Carragher has hit out at the journalist who told Man City boss Pep Guardiola about his comments about Erling Haaland after their recent loss to Real Madrid.

The Citizens have had a poor season by their standards with Guardiola’s side fourth in the Premier League and 17 points adrift of leaders Liverpool.

Man City have won the last four Premier League titles in a row but that achievement is out of reach this season, while they were also dumped out of the Champions League by Real Madrid in the play-offs.

Guardiola’s side were second best in the second leg at the Bernabeu and were missing top goalscorer Haaland, who had been forced off in their previous match through injury.

Liverpool legend Carragher claimed that Haaland missed the clash against Real Madrid because he was worried about facing Antonio Rudiger.

In a light-hearted comment on CBS Sports, Carragher joked: “Let me work this out, Haaland has gone to the manager in the morning and said he’s not fit? Do you think that’s got something to do with Rudiger? Is that because Rudiger is playing?

“He’s on the bench so he can’t be injured. I never went to see the manager on the morning of a game and said I’m not fit. So he’s injured, is he? It’s Rudiger-itis is it? Is that what we’re saying here?”

Daily Mirror journalist Simon Mullock called out Carragher’s comments in a press conference with Guardiola, putting the Liverpool legend’s views to the Man City boss.

Guardiola replied: “Oh, God, did he say that? Jamie Carragher said that? Oh God. Don’t laugh. I don’t know why he makes that suspicious, you know that? Did he say that Haaland didn’t want to play the game? It’s not nice – and it’s not true.

“He (Haaland) was crazy to play the game. He had a problem with his knee and he could not play.”

Responding to Guardiola’s reaction to his comments, Carragher insisted it was a “joke”, the former Liverpool defender wrote on X: “It was a joke to wind up Micah Richards as that’s the nature of our show on CBS and you know that @MullockSMirror but you just thought let’s get a big headline for my piece! Typical Sunday papers!!!”

MORE MAN CITY COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Big Weekend: Man City v Liverpool, Chelsea, Amorim, Wood, Sheff Utd v Leeds, Bayern Munich
👉 Guardiola ‘wants to leave’ Man City after being ‘forced’ to sign new deal ‘he didn’t want’
👉 Man City to be ‘found guilty on quite a lot of accounts’ with ‘transfer ban’ on the way

“He needs to be at Liverpool next season, more than anybody” @carra23 says Virgil van Dijk has “transformed” the club 👏 pic.twitter.com/7JL1a5ZbLr

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) February 23, 2025

Guardiola reckons a difficult year for Man City highlights how special their recent trophy-laden seasons have been at the Etihad Stadium.

The Catalan told a pre-match press conference: “Maybe in the future this will be an incredible season for the club to understand how difficult everything is.

“And try to sustain many, many years winning the biggest trophies because it’s so difficult.

“Everybody in this room, myself and everyone, realised this season how much we did in the past. Now it puts it into perspective.

“I could say before in the previous seasons ‘it’s so difficult’ every time I say it but every time they say for Man City it’s easy.

“Now everybody realises, me the first I would say, is surprised at the situation and how incredible it is what we have done.

“We won’t be able to emulate, not even for this club unfortunately.

“Right now it is changing every one, two, three years. It’s changed a lot. Recently teams have improved in levels that we could not imagine in the past. So it will be so, so difficult.”