That Tweet you quote from The Athletic is a bit cringeworthy when one considers the risibly partisan, shameless, supine brownnosing that The Athletic's Liverpool coverage consists of. They absolutely typify what Pep's talking about and in trying to take the moral high ground, gaslighting us is (as you say) exactly what they're trying to do.
Meanwhile, I don't know if anyone saw this, but I was entertained this morning by the fact that one of the talentless LFC media cheerleaders was obviously a bit riled by Pep's comments. Nonetheless, I'm grateful to Maddock for more or less making Pep's point for him: