Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola labelled his side as ‘so, so good’ despite their collapse during the Champions League quarter-final first leg defeat by Liverpool.
Liverpool scored three goals in 19 minutes as Guardiola watched on defenceless on the touchline at Anfield.
Mohamed Salah, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Sadio Mane all scored as Liverpool sealed a commanding first-leg lead ahead of the second leg at the Etihad next week.
Pep Guardiola reacts after watching his side go three goals down away at Liverpool
Replays showed afterwards that Salah was offside in the build-up to the goal.
Guardiola also thought the referee Felix Brych and his officials got the decision wrong before praising his players for their performance.
When told that Salah was offside, Guardiola told BT Sport: ‘Offside? I remember what happened. We were 1-1 in Monaco at home where we had Sergio Aguero penalty, red card for the Spanish referee and after the possible 2-1 goal, it goes 1-2.
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‘This kind of situation, it’s so important in that games one goal here, it’s tough to handle.
‘But it’s not just that the first goal was offside, it’s that for the second time they arrived they scored a second, and here in this stadium in the Champions League with our team so young we were unstable, except 10-15 minutes in the first half, we were so, so good.’
The task of coming back next Tuesday is one that has been made harder by City not scoring an away goal.
Television replays suggested the Egyptian may just have been offside at the start of the move
But Guardiola believes his side have enough quality to overturn the aggregate scoreline and progress to the semi-finals.
Asked if his side could turn the result round, he replied: ‘Of course. Of course it’s so difficult. But we’re going to try to play. Now we have lost. Nobody believes we can make the semi-finals because it was so tough, but we’re going to try.’
Fernandinho, Vincent Kompany and David Silva react after going 3-0 down against Liverpool
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