Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has hit out at VAR for disallowing his team a goal against Liverpool. City’s unbeaten start to the season ended at Anfield thanks to a late Mohamed Salah strike and Guardiola has criticised two of his players for their role in the winner.

City thought they had taken the lead earlier in the second half. Phil Foden squeezed the ball into the net from a tight angle after good work from Erling Haaland.

However, VAR recommended referee Anthony Taylor to review an incident involving Haaland and Fabinho. Taylor deemed the Norway striker to have fouled Fabinho in the build-up and the goal was ruled out.

Guardiola insisted Taylor let a lot of fouls go during the 90 minutes but bemoaned the fact that Foden’s effort was disallowed. He added. “Do you know how many fouls there were in the game? Do you know how many? A lot. It’s one more. With the other ones it’s play on, play on and play on but this one, not play on. I know the reason why. We scored a goal. That’s why.”

An exasperated city boss observed further: “Listen, it’s done. We lost because we made a mistake. Tight games and the decisions… tight games are different. We could not score, we had the chances, played with incredible personality from the back and making transitions because of their quality and that’s all.”

Salah’s goal came following a long kick from Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson, who caught Kevin De Bruyne’s tame free-kick. Guardiola criticised De Bruyne for not tracking back and also Joao Cancelo, who lost out in a 50-50 to Salah which saw the Egyptian through on goal.

“Kevin didn’t follow the transition and Joao lost the duel, and we lost with one action. But in general, the game was really good.”

When asked about Cancelo in particular, Guardiola said: “He will learn, he will learn. From the situation he will learn for the future.”

City midfielder Bernardo Silva was as disappointed as his manager with the decision to disallow Foden’s goal. The Portuguese told Sky Sports:

“What we expect from the referees is consistency in the decisions. And when you go through a path of not whistling little contact, throughout the whole game you need to keep those decisions to keep going that way. If you want to whistle all of them, whistle all of them but if from the beginning of the game you’re not whistling little fouls and we saw in this game that he was letting us play – which is good, it’s fine – then if there’s a goal you cannot whistle that soft one.”

• An Express report