Joe Gomez is still in Pep Guardiola’s head

Liverpool defender Joe Gomez is still in Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola’s head, two weeks after his side lost at Anfield.

Guardiola was talking ahead of City’s game against Chelsea, a press conferences that Hayters broadcast on YouTube, when the subject of Gomez and Raheem Sterling came up.

This is the first Premier League round since Sterling confronted the Liverpool man in the England canteen – an action that saw Three Lions manager Gareth Southgate drop the ex-Red from the Montenegro squad.

And it’s something that Pep is clearly still prickly about as he refused to answer questions about Sterling’s mental state.

Despite being pushed by reporters, all the City boss would say was that Sterling is ‘an excellent guy’ and that the pair ‘have a good relationship’.  When asked if the explosive meeting was due to the intense rivalry between the two sides, Guardiola swiftly drew a line under it all by adding that he had nothing else to contribute on the matter.

The Spaniard has been prickly in recent weeks and the loss to Liverpool would have hurt him immensely, but the fact that he doesn’t want to talk about a major incident that happened between his player and a direct rival’s mean that Joe Gomez has got inside his head more than he’d care to admit.

Losing that game and then having two weeks to dwell on it must have been awful for Guardiola, who appears to be keen to move on to the next fixture as quickly as possible.

Chelsea are up next and they are playing a nice brand of football – it wouldn’t be the most surprising result in the world if the Blues were able to get three points. If they do, you’d advise Mason Mount or Tammy Abraham to give Sterling a wide berth the next time everyone is summoned for England duty.

Liverpool have Crystal Palace and are favourites to extend their winning record in the Premier League.