Pep Guardiola insists Manchester City’s celebrations were not over the top in the lead up to Sunday’s tunnel brawl at Old Trafford.
Jose Mourinho blames City for sparking the bust-up because they disrespected Manchester United by wallowing in their 2-1 win, which has allowed them to open up an 11-point lead in the title race.
Guardiola has vehemently rejected this and insists City celebrated inside their dressing room and did nothing wrong.
“No,” he insisted. “Definitely not. Believe me, definitely not. It was the same as the Southampton game, although that was the goal in the 96th minute, but we were happy.
“We won a derby against United, at the moment our best rivals to win it. So if people expect we don’t celebrate - no. We celebrate, but like when United win the derby games, they celebrate. When Arsenal wins against United, they celebrate. We celebrated. Where? Inside the locker room and that’s what we tried to do.
“It was correct, believe me. We jumped because we were happy. People can understand we were happy. We won the game, an important game, and in that moment in the locker room we wanted to celebrate.
“The situation at Old Trafford when you go to the home locker room, you have to pass the away one, but we were inside celebrating.”
Guardiola says he told his players to celebrate and says their jubilation was no different to he enjoyed with Barcelona or Bayern Munich.
“I encouraged the players to celebrate the victories, but of course inside the locker room,” he said. “We have huge respect for our opponents, not just for Manchester United, all the opponents.
“All the teams around the world, when they win a derby - here, in Spain, Italy, Germany or wherever, they celebrate.
“I remember at Bayern Munich and we won the derby against Borussia Dortmund and we were so happy. Also at Barcelona and all the teams I played for, when we won important games and semi-finals, always we were happy. It’s what we did.
“The situation at Old Trafford when you go to the home locker room, you have to pass the away one, but we were inside celebrating.
“That is normal. It wasn’t anything exceptional. It was what we did last season in the past and what we will do in the future. But always we respect our opponents because we go on the pitch.
“The images can speak for themselves, what happened after the game, David Silva shook the hands of the opponents and then went to the fans in front. It was a normal celebration and after we did it, with more happiness in our locker room.”
But rival boss Jose Mourinho, asked whether he was confident his players had done nothing wrong, said: “I know. I’m not 'confident', I know.”