Perez denies warm-up rumours

The Galician striker looked set to replace the injured Marko Arnautovic, until Manuel Pellegrini opted to go with Michail Antonio instead.

"I have never ever refused to warm up in my whole career, let alone play a match," he said on Twitter. 

"In the moment Marko got injured, I was on the bench after warming up.

"The coach [Pellegrini] called me to go out and play - however, having realised that it was faster to substitute Antonio in, who at that moment was warming up, he changed his decision.

 "The images that have been misinterpreted correspond to a talk with the goalkeeper's coach, in which I never refused to warm up and explained what happened."