Pep Guardiola is morphing into Jose Mourinho! Finger pointing and negative tactics make struggling Man City boss look like his worst enemy

Guardiola did not just flash the six-finger salute in a response to Liverpool fans, he also did it at the end of the game towards the visiting City fans in a bid to lift their spirits after yet another chastening defeat, a sixth loss in seven games in all competitions.

A fair few City fans were not alive the last time their team lost four Premier League games, in August 2008, just after the club had been taken over by the Abu Dhabi royal family. But they might well remember watching another coaching empire crumble and see similar patterns of behaviour between Mourinho and their own boss.

The Portuguese won a third Premier League title with Chelsea in 2015, his eighth league crown, and then presided over one of the worst title defences in the league's history. Mourinho became more and more agitated with each defeat, and after losing at home to Southampton in October, a fourth loss in the opening eight league games, he fired out a warning to the Chelsea hierarchy.

"This is a crucial moment in the history of this club because, if they sack me, they sack the best manager this club has had," he said. But two months later, he was indeed fired after defeat at Leicester, a ninth loss in 16 league games.

Mourinho was not making hand gestures in his final days as Chelsea boss, but finger-pointing became a feature of his turbulent reign at Manchester United. When the Portuguese led United to win the Europa League in his first season, he was desperate to claim he had just presided over a treble triumph, after also winning the Carabao Cup and the Community Shield. And so as they celebrated their win over Ajax at the Friends Arena in Stockholm, the manager urged his players to hold up three fingers to signify each trophy won.

Mourinho was very keen to point out that he was back doing what he did best, winning silverware. But insisting that beating Leicester to win the Community Shield was some great triumph instead merely highlighted that he had fallen from the top rungs of the elite coaching ladder. He underlined this point with increasingly unhinged appearances in press conferences while at United, yelling about "football heritage" after being knocked out of the Champions League by Sevilla and calling for "respect" after losing 3-0 at home to Tottenham.

The Portuguese got his fingers out again a year later when he was nearing the end of his time as United boss. Back at Stamford Bridge and being taunted by Chelsea fans, he wanted to remind his former supporters of the good times he had presided over, displaying three fingers for his title wins in 2005, 2006 and 2015. Again, it smacked of desperation. United had just conceded a late equaliser and had won only four of their nine league games.

Two months later, Mourinho was fired by the Red Devils. That was his last elite job, and now the Portuguese is not even in an elite league, plying his trade with Fenerbahce in Turkey. His side are off the pace in the title race and he is only making headlines for his bizarre touchline antics and box-office interviews.

Pointed gestures and unmissable press conferences are very much part of the Mourinho brand. But we have come to expect better from Guardiola, who always used to let his teams do the talking on the pitch.

Mourinho and Guardiola formed a ferocious rivalry in the last decade, their story beginning when they were both at Barcelona working under Sir Bobby Robson and got on well. Mourinho then got under Guardiola's skin during the epic Champions League semi-final tie between Barca and Inter in 2010, and their rivalry was ramped up the following season in Spain, reaching boiling point amid four Clasicos between Mourinho's Madrid and Guardiola's Barca.

The flashpoint was the press conference before the Champions League semi-final between the two sides at Santiago Bernabeu, when Mourinho had sought to play his usual mind-games by accusing Guardiola of complaining about the referee's decision in the Copa del Rey final defeat to Madrid. Guardiola arrived in the press room like a man possessed, and infamously declared: "In this room he is the puto jefe, the puto amo – the f*cking boss, the f*cking master. I don't want to compete with him for a moment. Off the pitch, he is the winner… But this is a game of football."

Barca proceeded to play Madrid off the park the following night, winning 2-0 to reach the Champions League final, where they lifted a second European crown in three years, while they also won La Liga by a landslide. A year later, Mourinho's Madrid took the title off Barca, but when the pair were reunited in Manchester in 2016, the usual wrangling between the two great enemies was conspicuous by its absence. That's largely because there was no contest at all; Guardiola's City finished 19 points ahead of Mourinho's United in the 2017-18 season as the Portuguese bizarrely claimed that coming second was one of his greatest achievements.

Mourinho would boast about his achievements during good times and bad, whereas Guardiola preferred to praise his players rather than himself. But now that he has fallen upon bad times, the Catalan is displaying the same traits as Mourinho. He is doing it with a smile, for now, and he has not yet resorted to the dark arts the Portuguese has dabbled in, be it poking rival coaches in the eye or shouting at referees in car parks.

It was not just at Anfield that Guardiola let his guard down, though. The previous week, he went on what could be best described as a rant during his press conference before facing Tottenham, telling journalists on more than one occasion: "I'm sorry guys, I won six Premier League titles." He has also criticised his players, something he would very rarely do previously.

Unlike Mourinho, who loved to have a scapegoat, Guardiola has not yet focused on individuals, instead citing collective problems. After the 4-1 thrashing by Sporting CP, he said players were "not emotionally stable". After the 4-0 hammering by Tottenham, he said the team were "fragile". How long before he turns on individuals again?

Two seasons ago, Guardiola called Kalvin Phillips "overweight" and questioned Kyle Walker's tactical intelligence. Phillips never recovered from that public slight, but as City won the treble it did not get much attention. Guardiola's remarks about Walker ended up leading to a remarkable resurgence in the form of the defender, who he begged to stay and who was then made captain. Walker now, however, looks to be on an irreversible decline; could the same thing be happening to Guardiola?

It is never a good idea to doubt Guardiola. He responded to a trophy-less debut season with City by storming to the title with 100 points. He responded to surrendering the league crown to Liverpool in 2020 by winning four titles in a row, something no team had done previously in 135 years of English football.

More than anyone else, Guardiola knows how to get a reaction out of his players. His manic team talks, captured on camera in City's popular documentaries 'Together: The Treble' and 'Together: Four-in-a-row', have often got the desired response. But there are signs that his antics might now be having the opposite effect.

When Feyenoord scored their first goal in their stunning comeback to draw 3-3 on Tuesday, Guardiola threw his head into his hands, holding it there for 10 seconds. After the Dutch side's second goal, he started sarcastically applauding his players. After the game, Guardiola said: "The first time something happened, we had problems." Could it be that his anguished demeanour, which has left him with a cut on his nose and scratches all over his head, is draining their confidence?

Sometimes tried and trusted methods cease to have the desired effect. It certainly happened with Mourinho; the Portuguese's win-at-all costs philosophy earned him the loyalty of many players in his first era with Chelsea and particularly at Inter. Those same ideas, though, alienated many of his players at Real Madrid, who had just won the World Cup with Spain. Similarly, his defensive tactics frustrated the players in his second spell at Chelsea and throughout his tenure with United.

Another sign that Guardiola is getting closer to Mourinho could be seen in his tactics at Anfield. The Catalan named an uncharacteristically defensive line-up, fielding Matheus Nunes and Nathan Ake over Savinho and Josko Gvardiol. It was only late in the second half that he brought on Kevin De Bruyne, Savinho and Jeremy Doku. Granted, the coach was missing two key holding midfielders in Rodri and Mateo Kovacic and facing the most in-form team in Europe at a ground where City had only won once in 21 years, but his line-up still conveyed a sense that he was going for damage limitation rather than a statement performance.

It could be argued that Guardiola has been pushing in a more cautious direction for a while. For the last two years, he has been playing centre-backs at full-back, deploying Akanji, Gvardiol, Ake, and John Stones out of position with varying levels of frequency. Walker seldom puts in crosses or strays into the final third, while Erling Haaland is almost always used as a target man, even though he keeps on struggling to score against the top opponents. Such a role is becoming increasingly rarer in modern football and it should not be forgotten that the coach who pioneered playing without a recognised striker was Guardiola himself.

The coach's more recent tactical innovations have served him and City very well, winning them the Champions League and extending their stranglehold on the Premier League title. But now their grip has loosened and they look set to relinquish their crown, he will have to revolutionise his side once more. And as he looks to the future, Guardiola needs to move in the opposite direction, away from the worst traits of Mourinho. His fingers must point ahead, not back towards a glorious but fading past.