Enzo Maresca has defended Manchester City’s right to celebrate successes on the pitch while an appeal process against guilty verdicts for breaching financial rules is ongoing.
A deluge of criticism rained down on City’s squad for their actions both during and after beating Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield on Sunday to maintain a lead at the top of the Premier League.
Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki all scored in the space of 13 second-half minutes, with wild scenes in front of an exuberant away end.
Maresca danced down the touchline and stuck fingers in his ears, with staff and players branded arrogant by their detractors.
Maresca hit back at critics before their Champions League tie against Paris Saint-Germain at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night.
‘Criticised for what?’ he said. ‘We won 3-0 at Anfield! What do you want us to do? And even if it was 0-1, it would be exactly the same.
Enzo Maresca has defended Manchester City’s right to celebrate successes on the pitch
A deluge of criticism rained down on City’s squad for their actions both during and after beating Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield
‘I’m here today, and the players are here today, to win tomorrow’s game. And we work every day to win games. It’s the only thing, again, that we can think and be focussed.
‘The rest? It’s just things from outside that we need to deal with, but we were so, so, so happy inside the pitch, and you cannot imagine inside the changing room.’
Maresca added: ‘We were very happy, sharing time with our fans. Probably it’s been more tough for our fans than our players or for me.
‘It’s more complicated for them because if I am an Arsenal fan or Utd fan, I look at City fans and say ‘hey my friend, you are a cheat’. Inside the changing room we were very happy because we knew how difficult Anfield is. Anfield was unbelievable.’
City skipper Ruben Dias stood behind Maresca’s words – and claimed they will continue to celebrate with passion.
‘We’ll celebrate however we feel in the moment,’ Dias said. ‘It’ll be a show of how much things mean to us.
‘Yes there is a lot of noise and it’s almost impossible to not see something – even us being so private. But I feel like we’re also very good at focusing on ourselves.
‘You build yourself against any kind of noise. I feel like I speak for the whole group when I say we’re very calm. We trust the club. We know the team we’ve got and want to win. It’s the same noise as before because people don’t love us.’
