Mauricio Pochettino apologised to referee Anthony Taylor and Pep Guardiola, saying he “didn’t see” the Manchester City boss offer a handshake at the end of Chelsea’s 4-4 draw.
The two sides played out one of the most thrilling games of the Premier League season so far that saw City come back from a goal down to lead 4-3 with only minutes of injury-time remaining.
However, Cole Palmer stepped up to level with a dramatic 95th-minute effort from the spot against his former club. The youngster had joined Chelsea from City in the summer as Guardiola was unable to guarantee him regular first-team action.
Pochettino was unhappy with some decisions in the match and was booked for arguing with referee Taylor. However, he accepts he “crossed the limit”.
“I need to apologise to Anthony [Taylor] and the officials,” said Pochettino. “In this moment, I feel Raheem [Sterling] can go through to score the fifth. In this moment when we finish the game, I turn to Anthony and say ‘What the, you know, is going on? Why stop in this moment the action?’
“Then, I turned and said ‘I deserve to be booked’ because yes, I crossed the limit. I want to apologise because it is not a good image for me and for football, this type of behaviour.”
Pochettino also clarified why he had apparently snubbed his Spanish counterpart.
He said: “Yes, I want to apologise to him because in this moment I didn’t see, I was focused on the action. So I want to apologise to Pep also.”
The Argentine also praised his players for their mental strength to come back so late in the game.
He added: “They showed their character, showed their mentality, showed that we have tools that against a team like Manchester City, we go for the goal, to dominate and to have the capacity to create chances.
“I think it’s really important today, like I told you on Monday, maybe it’s a starting point to start to build our confidence and to believe more in the way we’re working. I think today is about how we’re going to compete in the future in this way.”
Guardiola said that he had “no problem” with Pochettino and added: “It’s fine, everyone has emotions, it happened to me sometimes.”
Given the frenetic nature of the game, Guardiola acknowledged it had been a “good advert for the Premier League,” even if it represented two dropped points.
Guardiola hails City’s thrilling draw with Chelsea as a ‘good advert’ for Premier League
The Catalan suggested that Pochettino’s side were now starting to gel, adding: “They build something new with a lot of new players with what they have done is to be able to play the way they do.
“So maybe the results in the beginning were not good, but they play really well for the quality. It was a tight game. We had our moments, they had their moments.”
He continued: “And right now, I think it was a fair result. So both teams played to win and yeah, this is what happened.”
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