Zlatan Ibrahimovic takes another swipe at Pep Guardiola ahead of his bow in the Manchester derby

ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIC has renewed his attack on Pep Guardiola ahead of the big Manchester showdown.

The Man United striker previously branded Guardiola as a “spineless coward” over the way he treated him at Barcelona.

And Ibra has further stoked the derby fires ahead of Saturday’s clash with a swipe at the City manager – in the same breath as hailing his current boss Jose Mourinho.

Ibra said: “Mourinho’s direct with everyone. He’s not a coach that goes behind your back.

“He will tell you. If you’re not good enough, you’re not good enough.

“I prefer that it’s like that instead of having somebody that doesn’t say anything to you. But you think it’s good because you don’t hear anything.

“He’s a winner, I see myself as a winner also. I like to win, I’ll do anything to win. He thinks the same thing. He won. And I won. We won when we were young and we will win when we are a little bit older.”

Ibra has previously claimed Guardiola “broke his dream” of being at Barcelona.

He said at the time: “When I walk into a room, Guardiola will walk out.”

The Swede then left for AC Milan just a season after his £56million arrival from Inter – where he won Serie A in his final season under Mourinho.

Ibra is delighted to be back working with the Portuguese.

He added: “For me a relationship between a player and a coach has to be between a player and a coach. I know this coach from before, I know what he wants. I know his demands, I know what he goes for.

“In a short time he was very successful and not every coach has that. You have coaches that build up and clubs have a lot of patience with them.

“Wherever he went he won. When he was in Porto, for example, he won the Champions League when nobody expected him to.

“And he does what he needs to do to win. And he’ll make sure he wins, just like me as a player.

“I don’t accept to lose, because when I lose I learn. And I will not lose, I will win.”

Ibra’s agent Mino Raiola – who banked around £25million from deals involving United over the summer – also slammed Guardiola yesterday.

Raiola raged: “Guardiola? He doesn’t have the balls to sit down and talk to me and I don’t like that.

“I don’t like him. I do not hate him, but I do not like him. Everyone knows what happened to Zlatan in Barcelona.

“Everyone knows I don’t like him. He’s a good coach but his football philosophy seems boring to me. He doesn’t have the guts to sit next to me.

“I like people who have a different character to Guardiola.”