Saturday 9 September 2017 17:19, UK
Pep Guardiola had sympathy with Sadio Mane after his costly red card in Manchester City's emphatic 5-0 win over Liverpool.
The Senegal international caught City goalkeeper Ederson in the face late in the first half with a high boot as he raced out of his area to head the ball clear a fraction of a second before Mane tried to reach it at full stretch.
Referee Jon Moss had no hesitation in issuing a red card and, after several minutes' treatment, Ederson was carried off on a stretcher to be examined by City's medical staff, although he returned to the bench before the end of the game.
"The action is hard," Guardiola said. "I cannot think a player like Mane is going to make hard [contact] to the face so I think he followed the ball but the action is dangerous. I don't know if it is red card or not."
City revealed the summer signing from Benfica had not suffered concussion and Guardiola was hopeful the goalkeeper had not sustained any broken bones and would return to action quickly.
"I think it has not broken the bone. That is so important," the City boss added. "He will be more beautiful after that. Hopefully he can come back as soon as possible.
"Of course it was not intentional from Mane. He didn't see him but the impact was hard.
"Hopefully he can work and stay. Maybe he will not play in the next game."
City took full advantage of their numerical advantage with Gabriel Jesus scoring twice either side of half-time and substitute Leroy Sane adding two of his own late on.
"When you play 10 against 11 for 50 minutes it is a good advantage," admitted Guardiola.
"Today sometimes it was not easy to play against 10 but we did it well. The second goal helped us a lot.
"In the second half they changed system and we wasted some minutes to adjust our high pressing.
"We had to find the right moment with Sergio, Kevin (De Bruyne) and David (Silva). We had patience to do that. We read the situation quite well."
