Guardiola on Farke’s Donnarumma comments and late win over Leeds | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola says he thought Gianluigi Donnarumma had a genuine injury against Leeds, following comments made by opposition boss Daniel Farke.

Farke implied Donnarumma had feigned injury to allow Guardiola to give his players a team talk on the touchline.

“Everyone knows why he went down right? It’s not like an elephant in the room,” Farke said.

Leeds found themselves two goals down at half-time after strikes from Phil Foden and Josko Gvardiol but fought back in the second half to level the score at 2-2 thanks to Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Lukas Nmecha.

But Foden scored his second of the game in second-half stoppage time to snatch victory for Guardiola’s side.

On Farke’s comments regarding Donnarumma, the City boss responded: “To be honest, I didn’t speak with Gigi.

“I know what happened and when it happened I looked back to the dugout and told James Trafford to warm up.

“Honestly, I don’t know. Next press conference you can ask me.”

Guardiola admitted it is beneficial to have a break to speak to his players, however, but warned Donnarumma players not to do it again.

“Of course every time I would love to have a timeout but I’m pretty sure if we do it again the Premier League will fine us again so better we don’t do it,” he said.

“When we are five seconds late at half time, always we have to pay a lot of money. Now we have to wait 30 minutes to come here (the press conference) because of course Daniel (Farke) had to speak and after that it’s not a problem.

“Hopefully they don’t fine me because I am 30 minutes late. It’s because Daniel Farke was here. Premier League, you know it now.”

City’s win puts them second and four points behind Arsenal, ahead of the Gunners’ clash with third-placed Chelsea on Sunday.

“We’ll see tomorrow with Arsenal and Chelsea what’s going on, what happens, but it is important to be close as possible to the top of the league,” Guardiola said. “It’s possible to try until the end.”