By Betsefy
Manchester City are reportedly set to lodge a complaint to the Premier League after coins were alleged to have been thrown at manager Pep Guardiola in Sunday’s 1-0 defeat against Liverpool at Anfield.
The Citizens have seen their unbeaten start to the 2022-23 campaign come to an end courtesy of a second-half strike from Reds forward Mohamed Salah.
Prior to the Egyptian’s goal, Phil Foden thought he had broken the deadlock 10 minutes after half time, but his strike was disallowed following a review by referee Anthony Taylor at the VAR pitchside monitor, after Erling Braut Haaland was deemed to have fouled Fabinho in the build-up.
Guardiola was left outraged on the touchline at the decision to disallow the goal and it has been claimed that coins were thrown towards the Man City bench by Liverpool supporters.
The Daily Telegraph claims that the Citizens are now expected to report the incident to the Premier League which could therefore see the FA intervene to investigate the matter.
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Liverpool and Man City have previously seen crowd trouble occur in this fixture at Anfield, with the Citizens’ team bus attacked as they headed to the stadium prior to their 2018 Champions League contest.
Guardiola has bemoaned a lack of consistency from the officials and stated that missiles were thrown in his direction following Foden’s disallowed goal.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, the Spaniard said: “The crowd tried [to throw coins/objects] but they didn’t touch me. Maybe next time they will be better.”
“This is Anfield, every time you come here lately unfortunately this is Anfield. We played a really good game but this is a game where there are really fine margins and the mistakes are punished. We made a mistake and we cannot concede and that’s why we lost the game.
“We played to beat Liverpool today, definitely we played for that. After 1-0 the crowd shouted but we shouted more on the pitch.
“The referee said played on, played on, played on, there were a thousand million fouls like this and this one is because we scored a goal. So they disallowed because we scored a goal, otherwise it would not have been disallowed. We lost because we make a mistake but this is Anfield.”
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Liverpool have since released a statement condemning the “unacceptable behaviour” from the Anfield crowd and state that lifetime bans will be handed out to those found guilty following an investigation.
A statement released by Liverpool said: “We are aware of an incident involving objects being thrown into the technical area at today’s game.
“This is totally unacceptable behaviour and not the standards of behaviour we expect at Anfield. This incident will be fully investigated using CCTV and those found guilty will be punished, including a lifetime ban from Anfield Stadium and a possible football banning order.”
Meanwhile, Liverpool have also released a separate statement condemning “vile chants” relating to the Hillsborough disaster from Man City supporters, and claim that they vandalised the away section with graffiti.
Following their defeat at Anfield, Guardiola’s men have now slipped four points behind leaders Arsenal, who secured a slender 1-0 win away at Leeds United earlier in the day, while Liverpool have climbed up to eighth place, 10 points behind City in second with a game in hand.
Jurgen Klopp‘s side will play host to West Ham United in their next Premier League game on Wednesday, while the Citizens will welcome Brighton & Hove Albion to the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
