Pep Guardiola really shot himself in the foot ahead of the Manchester derby.

The Manchester City boss spoke about how Paul Pogba was allegedly offered to City in January.

Guardiola was responding after super-agent Mino Raiola called him “a dog” and “a coward” by saying: "Two months ago he offered me Mkhitaryan and Pogba to play with us.

“Comparing [me to] a dog is bad - it's not good. He has to respect the dogs."

Little did he know that his words were going to come back to haunt him.

Guardiola’s pre-match comments appeared only to inspire Pogba with the Frenchman’s second-half brace helping United recover from 2-0 down at half-time to triumph 3-2.

Of course, everyone was talking about Pogba after the match thanks to his Man of the Match display - and also about his questionable light blue hair on a day City could have won the league.

POGBA WAS TERRIBLE IN THE FIRST-HALF

But what hasn’t really been talked about is his first-half display.

While that doesn’t really matter anymore, everyone seems to be getting a bit carried away with his performance after the break.

But not Alan Shearer.

The Match of the Day presenter slammed Pogba for his first-half performance, claiming he wouldn’t even get into Tranmere’s side with the way he played.

"Pep Guardiola took a gamble with his comments about Pogba on Friday and it backfired," Shearer wrote in The Sun.

"Pep also probably said what he did because he knows Pogba wouldn’t have got in City’s team this season with the way he has been playing.

"To be honest, he wouldn’t have got in Tranmere’s team the way he performed in the first half on Saturday. The way Paul Pogba played in the first half on Saturday was embarrassing. He was awful.

"Had Manchester United gone on to lose, Pogba would undoubtedly have taken the brunt of the criticism.

"His career at United so far has been very stop-start — and certainly more stop than start.
Pogba hasn’t been anywhere near the player we hoped he would be when he signed for United for a then world-record fee of £89million in August 2016.

"I’m not saying he should dominate every game. You cannot expect any player to do that. But even Jose said recently you would have to ask Pogba why he hasn’t played that well.

"Now you would hope his second-half performance against City will be the start of more like that in the future. Ander Herrera said after Saturday’s match that Pogba 'can be the best in the world.'"

While Shearer might be exaggerating slightly by saying Pogba wouldn't even get into a National League side, his point stands.

Pogba was really poor in the first-half and everyone would have been talking about his awful performance and hair at full-time if it wasn’t for his second-half heroics.

But now he’s shown everyone he’s capable of almost single-handedly winning big matches, everyone is expecting him to now do it on a regular basis.