Pep Guardiola under added pressure as Manchester City prepare for crucial Liverpool clash as Barcelona boss slates Etihad spending
Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu and La Liga chief Javier Tebas have both taken aim at the Qatar money spent at the Etiad
THE sound of incoming friendly fire from the Nou Camp only amplified the belief that the time of reckoning is arriving for Pep Guardiola.
Transfer window closed, international break yawned away and a vibrant Liverpool side rolling into the Etihad at lunchtime — this is where Manchester City’s season begins in earnest.
City boast the finest collection of eye-candy footballers the Premier League has ever seen — all under the tutelage of Saint Pep, football’s Dalai Lama in hipster sneakers.
But as Barcelona’s embattled president Josep Maria Bartomeu reminded us during this past tumbleweed fortnight, it is a team assembled at such lavish expense it is the cause of international uproar — even in Catalonia, Guardiola’s homeland.
Bartomeu lashed out at City’s Abu Dhabi state funding — backing up an earlier rant from La Liga supremo Javier Tebas that City and Paris Saint-Germain are ‘distorting the market’ and trashing ideas of financial fair play.
While PSG have pulled off the eye-catching business of the European summer by snaring Neymar for £198million and Kylian Mbappe on loan with £162m to follow next season, City spent almost £130m on full-backs and took their spending from two summers under Guardiola to a staggering £380m (£315m net).
And Bartomeu bitched: “Qatar and Abu Dhabi are two countries that have two clubs. If Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Real Madrid or Arsenal buy a player, you know the money comes from football. But these two clubs distort the market.”
This after Spanish league president Tebas had said: “PSG and Manchester City benefit from sponsorship that makes no economic sense and lacks fair play.”
Tebas has also accused City of attempting to ‘cook the books’ after loaning five players to Girona, who are co-owned by City’s parent company and Guardiola’s agent brother Pere.
Sour grapes, jealousy and no little hypocrisy, undoubtedly. City are threatening legal action and Uefa are not pursuing the Etihad club, unlike Qatar-funded PSG.
Yet City’s staggering spending levels, allied with the sainthood bestowed on Guardiola during his Barca days, spell out the need to win the Premier League or Champions League this season.
Anything less will be regarded as failure. City’s start has been underwhelming compared to Manchester United’s but has still garnered seven points from nine before today’s first major test.
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After the recruitment of full-backs Kyle Walker, Benjamin Mendy and Danilo, along with midfield schemer Bernardo Silva, there is a feeling that City are a proper Pep side now, approaching completeness.
And yet a calf injury to Vincent Kompany which rules him out of today’s game has sent tremors through City’s support.
The club captain, an outstanding centre-half with an eggshell frame, remains vital if City are to win the title.
Especially without him, there is a clear danger presented by a Liverpool team which eviscerated Arsenal thanks to a succession of breakaway goals last time out and which took four points from City last term.
Jurgen Klopp, like Pep, wears a halo in the court of public opinion — despite neither man having won a trophy with their current employers.
The German, though, does enjoy the colossal spending power of City, so he carries hope rather than expectation.
Liverpool do possess the raw counter-attacking pace capable of picking off City, with Sadio Mane and Mo Salah, in particular, operating at light speed. This is why Klopp’s team have an outstanding record against top-six rivals. They are built to punish mistakes.
City, however beautiful, tend to make a fair few of those.
They are a rich man’s version of Kevin Keegan’s great entertainers of the 1990s — the same ‘we’re going to score one more than you’ mentality, never compromising their attacking instincts.
Guardiola can choose between Gabriel Jesus, Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne, Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling, Bernardo and David Silva — and we suspect he would love to select all seven.
No team with such purist instincts has ever won the Premier League — the title-winning sides of Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger could thrill, but were always far more balanced.
And across Manchester, Jose Mourinho has constructed a muscular United squad which looks far more like the usual template for the title.
So while the money spent on his project demands glory of Guardiola, he’ll have earned his £15.3m salary if he pulls this off.
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