Pep Guardiola explains why Man City adopted Liverpool FC style in title crunch

Pep Guardiola admits that he took a leaf out of Jurgen Klopp's book to surprise Liverpool as Manchester City fought out a 2-2 draw in the clash of the Premier League top two. The Blues played far more long, over-the-top passes than normal in what was almost a reversal of styles, with Liverpool playing through the lines in a bid to retain possession under a strong City press.

When asked why he had decided to abandon his normal short-passing game and go longer, Guardiola joked: "I try to imitate the best, I learn! It was a fantastic game, both teams want to win every game. It was a good game, I had the feeling that with this result, you have to review the game and feel it was missed opportunity, we give them a life.

"But heads up, I said to the team I don’t want one second of sadness. I’m so glad and happy with the way we played. When you do many good things the sadness is there, but I said forget it. We were ourselves, we performed incredibly well and unfortunately we could not win.

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"Every week here in the Premier League, we watch Liverpool and we know what they do, in chances created. We conceded so few and created a lot. In general it was a good performance, so happy and glad for my team.

Klopp said that City's tactics were "smart", in turning the tables on his side: "We don’t own the style, it’s just smart – I couldn’t respect it more.

"It’s easy to play the pass, but the timing for the run – it’s not bad. We could have done it as well but it’s fine, we improved and it’s about winning games, not which style.

"We played fewer long balls than usual, wanted to play between the lines, their last line. We wanted to mix it up, to play, the first goal, we’ve scored similar goals against them,