Pep Guardiola pleads poverty: ‘Even Manchester City can’t afford four competitions’

PEP Guardiola insists that not even Manchester City are rich enough to assemble the sort of squad required to win four competitions in one season.

The boss of the runaway Premier League leaders and Carabao Cup finalists also admits that he’s been told by the City hierarchy he can’t buy any £80m-plus players or compete with some of the salary packages being demanded.

“When you want to handle four competitions, you have to be very lucky with injuries or you need 22 top players,” said Guardiola.

“Today that’s so expensive and you cannot buy them all. It’s impossible.

“Maybe people will not believe me, but the club doesn’t have that money. No, not even City.

“There are salaries we cannot pay. There are aspects of the transfer we cannot pay. That is the truth.

“Maybe in the future it’s going to happen. But we haven’t paid £100m, or £90m or £80m for one player – and we cannot pay that right now.”

Guardiola’s words come in the wake of losing out to neighbours Manchester United on Alexis Sanchez, whose salary package is said to be in the region of £500,000-a-week.

City’s record transfer fee is still the £55m they paid for Kevin De Bruyne in 2015.

Since then, United, Chelsea and Liverpool have all purchased players who have cost in excess of that.

Yet sympathy for Guardiola may be limited, in view of the fact that City have 15 players in their squad who each cost more than £25m. And they would top the De Bruyne fee if they match the £57m buy-out clause for Athletic Bilbao centre-back Aymeric Laporte in the next few days.

“Of course we spent a lot of money, but just the same money as a lot of teams,” Guardiola continued.

“I can assure you that we are not the only team in the world that spends money. There are many.”

Where the Catalan won’t get too many arguments is with his plea for a reduction in the number of fixtures, though he’s realistic enough to know it’s likely to fall on deaf ears.

Today’s FA Cup tie at Cardiff is City’s 37th match of the campaign and they could face another 30 should they reach the finals of both the FA Cup and Champions League.

“All the managers are complaining about this – a lot of games, no recovery, a lot of injuries, but it’s what it is,” said Guardiola.

“Can we do anything about it? Absolutely not. The business show must go on.

“In the pre-season meetings with the big bosses, we speak about this and they listen – and that’s all.

“So if we draw in the FA Cup at Cardiff, we’re going to play a replay in the midweek after we play Burnley. We will try to win so we avoid that.

“I would like the Carabao Cup semi-final to be just one match. I would like the FA Cup to be played with one game and no replays.

“I think all the managers want this, but it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to change.”

City seem almost certain to be in next season’s Community Shield which, because of an early start to the Premier League, is played just three weeks after the World Cup Final.

“I try to think about many, many things. But the Community Shield? Right now?” Guardiola joked.

“I’m pretty sure that the guys who go to the World Cup – which here is about 80% of them like all the big clubs – will have a minimum three weeks to a month off.

“They deserve it because after the tough season, they go to the World Cup which is so demanding. They need to breathe and refresh.

“I was concerned about this at the beginning of my period with Barcelona but I learned to forget about it.

“You have to play the fixtures and we are going to play them with the players we have in the best condition.

“We’re going to finish the season, and then I’m going to speak with the club about when we start the first official games, and when we are going to organise the pre-season.”

Unlike title rivals United and Liverpool, who both spent downtime in Dubai earlier this month, City have had no mid-season break. And Guardiola doesn’t want one now.

“We had a break last season because we were not involved in the Carabao Cup,” he said.

“If you go out in the FA Cup or Champions League, maybe we can do it but I’d rather keep going in all competitions.”