I am human – Pep Guardiola defends his celebrations as Man City win Carabao Cup

Pep Guardiola said “I am a human being” as he defended his wild celebrations in Manchester City’s 2-0 Carabao Cup final victory against Arsenal.

Guardiola channelled his inner Jose Mourinho as he sprinted along the Wembley touchline before kicking an advertising board following Nico O’Reilly’s quickfire second-half brace.

Riccardo Calafiori hit a post, and Gabriel Jesus struck the crossbar, as Arsenal went in search of a response but City saw out the win as Guardiola landed the 19th trophy of his remarkable 10-season City tenure.

“I wanted another yellow card and that is why I did it,” joked Guardiola when quizzed about his celebration. “That was the target.

“Listen, if I can’t celebrate in the moment against a team like Arsenal, and the way we were playing… My emotions are related to the way we are playing. I react when it is OK, we scored a goal, and emotions came out.

“I am not artificially intelligent, I am a human being, and I want to celebrate. It was not showing disrespect to Arsenal or for the other fans, I just celebrated with my people. And when I feel it, I express it.”

Guardiola became the first manager in history to win the Carabao Cup five times, and, despite question marks over his City future, he indicated he has no desire to walk away at the end of the season.

“It is so difficult to win titles, it doesn’t matter if it is the Premier League or the Champions League, but to win against that team made the title special,” he added.

“Alongside Barcelona and Bayern Munich as well, they are the best team in Europe. And what we have done by winning 19 titles in 10 years in the modern era, in England, in Europe, it is hat’s off to the whole organisation.

“I still have the joy to compete. Today was a real challenge, nobody gave us anything. I said to the players: ‘Today, we are going to see what our level is’. They are the best so far, no doubt about that, so let’s prove ourselves and in the second half, I could not believe we could do it against Arsenal, and we did it.”

City are nine points behind the Gunners in the race for the Premier League title. However, Guardiola’s side have a game in hand, and host Arteta’s men at the Etihad next month.

Arsenal will also be wounded by City derailing their outside chance of an unprecedented quadruple.

Guardiola continued: “I would like to be nine points in front of Arsenal, and I don’t know if I would change the trophy for the nine points to fight for the Premier League.

“It is a different competition, and they will be more controlled when they come to the Etihad. Maybe for that game it will help us, but the Premier League is in their hands. Is that team going to drop points? We will try to win our games and then see what happens.”