Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has backed Sadio Mane, saying the striker is not a diver following claims made by Pep Guardiola.
The Senegalese international got booked after going down during Liverpool's 2-1 win away to Aston Villa in the Premier League at the weekend. Afterwards, the City boss Guardiola said, "sometimes he’s diving, sometimes he has this talent to score incredible goals in the last minute”.
However, this has lead to Jurgen Klopp to hit back at the comments, "Sadio is not a diver.
"So there was a situation in the Aston Villa game, he got contact and went down - and maybe it was not a penalty but there was contact.
"It's not like jumping over a leg and he hit you or whatever. There was contact. All the other penalties were penalties because he was ion that situation and stayed there.
"I'm 100% sure if something would happen like this for Manchester City they would want to have a penalty because somebody kicked the player in the box and that's a penalty."
The top-two teams in the Premier League face off against each other on Sunday - with a six-point gap between the two sides. However, first up for the Merseysiders, they face Genk tomorrow in the Champions League. They sit second in Group E looking for three wins in a row in the competition after claiming the trophy last year.
Jurgen Klopp has been emphasising their focus on their Belgian opposition. “You can say the words Man City, you just cannot think about it.
“The story the boys wrote in the last three years was only possible because we were always focused on the next game.
“No-one thinks, and I don’t have to tell them, ‘City is on Sunday, tomorrow is Genk’.
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