Seamus Coleman revealed what he said to Erling Haaland prior to the Manchester City striker missing a second-half penalty in the Boxing Day draw against Everton.

Everton recorded a third consecutive draw against big-name opposition away to City, with Iliman Ndiaye’s first-half strike cancelling out Bernardo Silva’s opening goal.

It’s the 12th match from City’s previous 13 across all competitions City have failed to win, as the problems continue to mount for under-fire boss Pep Guardiola.

But things could’ve been much different for City, had Haaland converted from 12 yards early on in the second half.

Savinho was hacked down by Vitalii Mykolenko inside the area, with referee Simon Hooper wasting no time in pointing towards the spot.

While there were no complaints from the Everton players about the decision, Coleman was intent on frustrating Haaland as much as possible before he stepped up to take the penalty.

The Irishman was spotted deep in conversation with Haaland, who didn’t look best pleased by Coleman’s presence in the penalty box.

When asked by Amazon Prime about the confrontation, Coleman remained tight-lipped about what he said to the Norwegian superstar.

A giggling Coleman stated: “No comment,” before presenter Dan Walker asked if it was a festive message.

Coleman continued: “Yeah, Merry Christmas. We came here wanting to get a point and you’ll do anything you can sometimes to win. There was no swearing or anything like that.”

The veteran right-back picked up a yellow card for his efforts, but he’ll happily take it, given team-mate Jordan Pickford made the save.

Despite dropping yet more points, Guardiola was quick to praise his players in his post-match debrief, insisting his City side ‘played well’.

The Catalan said: “If you ask me about the performance today, we did what we’ve done. When we play bad, I say in the press conference and say they were better, we were not good enough. But today was not the case against a top team, one of the best in clean sheets, the chances we had and not just the penalty, a lot.

“But football is about winning, football is about scoring goals and not conceding and always we have done it. And this season or this last month, month and a half, we are not able to do it.”

He continued: “First-half was brilliant, the first 10, 15 minutes [of the second-half] until the penalty was really good. The first time they arrived, they scored a goal. Of course at the end on the transition we could suffer the defeat.

“But when you analyse the result, of course we are not happy, but the performance and what we have done, the guys again, with the situation we are, was brilliant. Of course we don’t score the goals that we need.”

City return to action on Sunday afternoon when they travel to relegation-threatened Leicester City, before welcoming West Ham United to the Etihad for their first game of 2025.