Arne Slot has made his feelings clear on Pep Guardiola as Liverpool prepare to host title rivals Manchester City in the Premier League.
Arguably the biggest game of the season so far takes place at Anfield on Sunday afternoon, with visitors City in desperate need of a victory.
Guardiola's side are without a win in their last six matches in all competitions after throwing away a three-goal lead against Slot's former club Feyenoord in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
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The defending Premier League champions are already eight points behind surprise league leaders Liverpool heading into Sunday's game and a defeat on Merseyside would be a devastating blow to their hopes of securing a fifth successive title this season.
City have only won away at Liverpool three times since 1956, with Guardiola himself only claiming one of these victories – a 4-1 win over an injury-ravaged Reds side in 2021.
Speaking ahead of this weekend's game, Liverpool head coach Slot said he had contacted his former colleagues at Feyenoord after their remarkable comeback against City and made his feelings very clear on Guardiola.
"I got in touch but not in a tactical way," he said.
"I just contacted people I worked with to say 'what an amazing result and congratulations with the unbelievable performance' and those kinds of things.
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"I don't look up to Pep - that's not the words I would want to use. I think the reason for this is that Liverpool have always had great teams as well.
"So it's a combination of the fans and the players. If you only had good fans and terrible players it is difficult to win any game. But if you have very good players and the fans are all behind you, this always gives you something extra."
On Guardiola's underwhelming record at Anfield, Slot added: "What is even stranger than that is that the only time Liverpool have won the league in the last 30 years was when there were no fans!
"I think another statistic is that from the last nine or 10 games we have played against City, we have only won once.
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"The last eight times we played Real Madrid we had never won - until the other night when we won. So for me, data and statistics like that don't mean a lot with this game."
Guardiola, meanwhile, has accused City's rivals of "taking the p***" out of them and admits he's lost sleep over their disastrous run of form in recent weeks.
"I don't like it. I don't enjoy it at all. I don't sleep as good as when I won every game," he said.
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"Maybe it's more unusual to win four Premier League titles in a row. In that moment I was stable enough, I was happy because I eat better and sleep better."
Liverpool are now just six points clear of Arsenal at the top of the table after the Gunners thrashed West Ham 5-2 at the Emirates on Saturday.
Brighton and City are two points further back, with the Seagulls ahead of Pep Guardiola's side on goal difference.
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Topics: Liverpool, Manchester City, Premier League, Pep Guardiola, Arne Slot, Anfield
Rory O'Callaghan