‘They know’ – Pep Guardiola addresses bust-up after Man City beaten by Arsenal in tense title clash
ep Guardiola is remaining tight-lipped on an incident that saw his players angrily confront a member of Arsenal’s backroom staff following Sunday’s high-profile Premier League showdown.
Gunners set-piece coach Nicolas Jover was at the centre of a heated exchange that occurred after the huge clash between title rivals at the Emirates Stadium, which Arsenal won 1-0 courtesy of substitute Gabriel Martinelli’s late strike that took a huge deflection off Nathan Ake to put Mikel Arteta’s side level on points with north London rivals Tottenham at the top of the table.
Kyle Walker was unhappy with Jover as he looked to head down the tunnel after the game, furiously confronting him in scenes picked up by the Sky Sports cameras and soon being joined by team-mate Erling Haaland.
Other Arsenal staff members and City players then quickly arrived on the scene as tempers flared after a highly-charged encounter, but the situation was eventually diffused and Jover was led away by Bukayo Saka as he wagged his finger furiously back and forth.
City boss Guardiola was quizzed on the incident after watching his reigning champions – who also went down 2-1 at Wolves last weekend in a shock loss – suffer back-to-back league defeats for the first time since 2018, leaving them third and two points off the early title pace heading into the second international break of the campaign.
However, while he insisted that he – and Arsenal – knew exactly what had occurred, he refused to divulge any details when speaking to reporters.
A smiling Guardiola said: “I know what happened but I won’t say anything.”
He then added: “They [Arsenal] know it.”
However, Arsenal counterpart Arteta did not comment at all on the scuffle, saying in his own post-match press conference: “I haven’t seen it.”
Jover used to work for City, having coached under Guardiola and alongside Arteta at the Etihad Stadium between 2019-21 following spells with Montpellier in France, the Croatian national team and Brentford.
Arteta then brought the set-piece specialist to Arsenal in the summer of 2021 following the departure of Andreas Georgson to Swedish club Malmo.
