Pep Guardiola Threatens to quit Man City



Given he was smiling while he was saying the quitting part, I fear the OP is taking the quotes a bit too literally.

He's just saying he wants a smaller squad because it hurts him to leave players out.
 
sullydnl said:


Given he was smiling while he was saying the quitting part, I fear the OP is taking the quotes a bit too literally.

He's just saying he wants a smaller squad because it hurts him to leave players out.
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Obviously. It’s still ridiculous, because he keeps buying players for loads of money, he can’t use. Of course the squad is bloated.
 
Pep's squad sizes as a head coach:

2008/09 Barcelona - 32 players
2009/10 Barcelona - 27 players
2010/11 Barcelona - 31 players
2011/12 Barcelona - 31 players
2013/14 Bayern Munich - 28 players
2014/15 Bayern Munich - 27 players
2015/16 Bayern Munich - 32 players
2016/17 Man City - 31 players
2017/18 Man City - 27 players
2018/19 Man City - 32 players
2019/20 Man City - 27 players
2020/21 Man City - 32 players
2021/22 Man City - 33 players
2022/23 Man City - 26 players
2023/24 Man City - 29 players
2024/25 Man City - 33 players

In some of those seasons, 4 or 5 players have been academy lads and in some years there haven't been many or any youngsters at all. This idea that he's been doing what he does with 20 senior players a season (plus backup keepers and kids) isn't true at all.

He'll have a tantrum here and City will cut numbers to placate him. Then next season he'll be bitching and moaning about the fixture list when half his squad is injured and they're losing matches.
 
Why is pep talking like he has to send players to the hunger games?
 
CoopersDream said:
Pretty standard stuff, he likes a smaller squad than what they have right now, not sure what the issue is here.
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Deal with it within the club like and not bring it to the press? Especially considering how much he benefited from spending spree throughout the years. It's a bad look.
 
The most obvious case of wanting to leave a club but they throw endless cash at you to make it impossible.

He’s miserable.
 
He’s just pissed off because they’ve have had a shite season.

Hope he stays given he’s the only manager who can stop Liverpool winning another title.
 
RobinLFC said:
Three managers have won the Premier League more than once. SAF (13 times) and Mourinho and Wenger (both 3 times). Yet "at least 10 other managers" would apparently be able to win 6 PL titles?

Yeah okay.
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Surely the reality would be many more if they had essentially unlimited transfers?
 
RobinLFC said:
Three managers have won the Premier League more than once. SAF (13 times) and Mourinho and Wenger (both 3 times). Yet "at least 10 other managers" would apparently be able to win 6 PL titles?

Yeah okay.
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Robin and Pep, sitting in a tree
feck-ing-off-the-f-f-p
First comes Pep, then comes Robin
They’ll sleep well after all that knobbin’
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Surely the reality would be many more if they had essentially unlimited transfers?
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Mourinho had unlimited transfers as well (or at the very least in the same way Pep had) and he imploded in his fourth season when he failed to win it in his third. He's never been in a club longer than that so I find it hard to believe he would have done it.

Wenger would probably have managed to win it six times if he was at Arsenal for more than 20 years with unlimited transfers. Not in 8 years, though.
 
First thing that crossed my mind was Grealish.

He wants him gone, knows a reduced fee has bad optics so is making this narrative so certain players can be unloaded without negative criticism.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Surely the reality would be many more if they had essentially unlimited transfers?
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It takes incredible consistency and determination to win 6 titles in 8 years regardless of how much money you spend. As mentioned, Mourinho could also pretty much do what he wanted at Chelsea with Abramovich' backing.

Pep's ideas might be "outdated" right now though, he doesn't have a plan B if his ideal concept of football doesn't work against opponents which it clearly didn't this season too many times. Will be very interesting to see whether he's able to adapt his style a bit, football is much more direct again these days compared to how he had City playing at their best. But to state that "at least 10 other managers" would do what no one apart from SAF has even come remotely close to, in such a short timeframe, is a ridiculous notion imo. For all his shortcomings on personal/emotional/whatever level, he's clearly one of the best managers in the world and has been since he was at Barca.
 
diarm said:
Pep's squad sizes as a head coach:

2008/09 Barcelona - 32 players
2009/10 Barcelona - 27 players
2010/11 Barcelona - 31 players
2011/12 Barcelona - 31 players
2013/14 Bayern Munich - 28 players
2014/15 Bayern Munich - 27 players
2015/16 Bayern Munich - 32 players
2016/17 Man City - 31 players
2017/18 Man City - 27 players
2018/19 Man City - 32 players
2019/20 Man City - 27 players
2020/21 Man City - 32 players
2021/22 Man City - 33 players
2022/23 Man City - 26 players
2023/24 Man City - 29 players
2024/25 Man City - 33 players

In some of those seasons, 4 or 5 players have been academy lads and in some years there haven't been many or any youngsters at all. This idea that he's been doing what he does with 20 senior players a season (plus backup keepers and kids) isn't true at all.

He'll have a tantrum here and City will cut numbers to placate him. Then next season he'll be bitching and moaning about the fixture list when half his squad is injured and they're losing matches.
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In other words he's been chatting shit. He had 30+ players at Barca too... and seemed to have no problem tribuning Ibra, whatever that means.
 
RobinLFC said:
It takes incredible consistency and determination to win 6 titles in 8 years regardless of how much money you spend. As mentioned, Mourinho could also pretty much do what he wanted at Chelsea with Abramovich' backing.
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Lets just stop with this 'its just more money' nonsense.

Grealish, Phillips and more were players he bought, just to stop someone else having them. Using transfers as a weapon is way, way beyond having more money than other teams, and that is what he has had.

He had a bigger advantage than any team in the history of the game has ever had. He still does, they spent more in January than most premier league teams can spend in a season.
 
Fr. Todd Unctious said:
Correct. I would thought it's almost certain there's players Ferguson and Wenger would have wanted but funds available only allowed them to do so much. Meanwhile Pep only has to ask
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Also, as much as people like to buy into managers, there's very few examples of the winners of the league not being a team who spent huge sums of money. It's the managers who are not the top spenders and win things that we should be celebrating.
CoopersDream said:
Mourinho had unlimited transfers as well (or at the very least in the same way Pep had) and he imploded in his fourth season when he failed to win it in his third. He's never been in a club longer than that so I find it hard to believe he would have done it.

Wenger would probably have managed to win it six times if he was at Arsenal for more than 20 years with unlimited transfers. Not in 8 years, though.
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Maybe not with Mou, as he was volatile but then the reasons he left Chelsea the first time would never happen with pep (they'd never bring in someone as DoF he actively did not want).

It's more a question of their spend in relation to their rivals. Pool operate on a completely different budget to City, but people act like Pep did amazingly to beat them to the title by a point a couple of times? Last year I think Pep hit £1.4b or something on spend at City and Klopp was around £750m despite being in the league longer. How can you even compare? People who celebrate Pep would call Antony Joshua the GOAT for knocking out Mayweather.
 
Nogbadthebad said:
Lets just stop with this 'its just more money' nonsense.

Grealish, Phillips and more were players he bought, just to stop someone else having them. Using transfers as a weapon is way, way beyond having more money than other teams, and that is what he has had.

He had a bigger advantage than any team in the history of the game has ever had. He still does, they spent more in January than most premier league teams can spend in a season.
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I agree with that yet I still don't think 10 other managers would easily have won the amount of leagues in 8 years time that Pep did, which was the only thing I commented on.
 
diarm said:
Pep's squad sizes as a head coach:

2008/09 Barcelona - 32 players
2009/10 Barcelona - 27 players
2010/11 Barcelona - 31 players
2011/12 Barcelona - 31 players
2013/14 Bayern Munich - 28 players
2014/15 Bayern Munich - 27 players
2015/16 Bayern Munich - 32 players
2016/17 Man City - 31 players
2017/18 Man City - 27 players
2018/19 Man City - 32 players
2019/20 Man City - 27 players
2020/21 Man City - 32 players
2021/22 Man City - 33 players
2022/23 Man City - 26 players
2023/24 Man City - 29 players
2024/25 Man City - 33 players

In some of those seasons, 4 or 5 players have been academy lads and in some years there haven't been many or any youngsters at all. This idea that he's been doing what he does with 20 senior players a season (plus backup keepers and kids) isn't true at all.

He'll have a tantrum here and City will cut numbers to placate him. Then next season he'll be bitching and moaning about the fixture list when half his squad is injured and they're losing matches.
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Eh the numbers are deceiving. If you look at the 33 right now, that's basically 20 senior players plus goalies, and then a bunch of u21 players who are there as fillers and would be loaned or in the youth teams if not for registration rules. You can look at it year after year, Pep has always been one to push for smaller senior squads and fill the numbers with young players who don't expect to play that much.

Just looked at his 2010/11 Barca team and it was the same deal. 20 senior players, the rest fillers from the B team who made fewer than 10 apps in all competitions.
 
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This is just trying to make himself the good guy for leaving out players. Im sure he is weeping into his pillow every night because the club spent too much on transfers. I call Bullshit
 
Nogbadthebad said:
He had a bigger advantage than any team in the history of the game has ever had. He still does, they spent more in January than most premier league teams can spend in a season.
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Except of course most of the top 6 spend that kind of money every season. It's only Liverpool who doesn't consistently spalsh the cash these days.
tomaldinho1 said:
It's more a question of their spend in relation to their rivals. Pool operate on a completely different budget to City, but people act like Pep did amazingly to beat them to the title by a point a couple of times? Last year I think Pep hit £1.4b or something on spend at City and Klopp was around £750m despite being in the league longer. How can you even compare? People who celebrate Pep would call Antony Joshua the GOAT for knocking out Mayweather.
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But Liverpool isn't their only rival. There are a number of other clubs who spend similar amounts, one club which spent well north of 1.2 billions just since 2022. Spending a lot of money is not something unique for Pep in this league.

Klopp is an incredible manager and did a brilliant job with Liverpool. They spent incredibly well during his time there, but they had an amazing team when they won. It wasn't a team of bums. If they hadn't won at least one league with that team, I think it would have been a dissapointment.
 
RobinLFC said:
It takes incredible consistency and determination to win 6 titles in 8 years regardless of how much money you spend. As mentioned, Mourinho could also pretty much do what he wanted at Chelsea with Abramovich' backing.

Pep's ideas might be "outdated" right now though, he doesn't have a plan B if his ideal concept of football doesn't work against opponents which it clearly didn't this season too many times. Will be very interesting to see whether he's able to adapt his style a bit, football is much more direct again these days compared to how he had City playing at their best. But to state that "at least 10 other managers" would do what no one apart from SAF has even come remotely close to, in such a short timeframe, is a ridiculous notion imo. For all his shortcomings on personal/emotional/whatever level, he's clearly one of the best managers in the world and has been since he was at Barca.
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This is where I disagree, I think if you look at the landscape of the league since he has been here - Pep's achievements are basically propped up by Klopp being a bit of a miracle worker. I'm not sure about things being outdated, I think it's not good for the sport re entertainment but you can play whatever you want to, I just think if you cast a critical eye over what he's done at City, it's not something I would think other managers could not replicate. It's commonly happens in other leagues with financially dominant teams.
 
This comes after they dropped out of the Wirtz race citing financial reasons. Coincidence? So they signed him players for 200m in winter and possibly now said "look we cannot sign a single player on a financial package of 300m on top of that and not risk FFP issues" and now he's throwing the toys out of the pram?
 
You'd think his time is coming to an end one way or the other. Nine years in, he has won what he can and seems to be coming apart a bit.
 
CoopersDream said:
But Liverpool isn't their only rival. There are a number of other clubs who spend similar amounts, one club which spent well north of 1.2 billions just since 2022. Spending a lot of money is not something unique for Pep in this league.

Klopp is an incredible manager and did a brilliant job with Liverpool. They spent incredibly well during his time there, but they had an amazing team when they won. It wasn't a team of bums. If they hadn't won at least one league with that team, I think it would have been a dissapointment.
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I think for most of his time in the league, Klopp has been the best coach and outperformed him in the CL as well (3 finals, 1 win vs 2 finals, 1 win). Chelsea now are a huge spender with Boehly but they are buying kids with a view to a couple of seasons time, it will be interesting if Pep is still here then. If you add in the leaked emails and cheating, Pool I guess should have won 2 more titles and Arsenal got plain robbed by Michael Oliver last season (how that wasn't investigated is beyond me), his record would look very different. Point being, biggest spender at a club accused of a decade of fraud = big question mark and not something I'd think 'wow, how did he do that?'
 
Is this down to Txiki Begiristain leaving and him not being happy with Hugo Viana’s ideas?
 
tomaldinho1 said:
This is where I disagree, I think if you look at the landscape of the league since he has been here - Pep's achievements are basically propped up by Klopp being a bit of a miracle worker. I'm not sure about things being outdated, I think it's not good for the sport re entertainment but you can play whatever you want to, I just think if you cast a critical eye over what he's done at City, it's not something I would think other managers could not replicate. It's commonly happens in other leagues with financially dominant teams.
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Hmm yeah I don't agree with that. I assume you refer to Bayern and PSG with financially dominant teams in other leagues but those situations are too different to compare. PSG compared to Marseille/Lyon/Monaco/... and Bayern compared to Leverkusen/Leipzig/Dortmund/... isn't in the same ballpark as City compared to Liverpool/United/Chelsea/Arsenal imo.

It's incredibly rare, to the point of never seen before apart from SAF, for a manager to stay that long at one team and win that many championships in such a timeframe, even at Bayern, PSG, Barca or Real. Could it potentially have been done by "another" manager? I guess, but stating that 10 others would do what Pep has done is just a wild (and inaccurate imo) assumption. I don't think once he leaves that you'll see the same dominance from City in the league, even if they have the same resources available after their trial.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
I think for most of his time in the league, Klopp has been the best coach and outperformed him in the CL as well (3 finals, 1 win vs 2 finals, 1 win). Chelsea now are a huge spender with Boehly but they are buying kids with a view to a couple of seasons time, it will be interesting if Pep is still here then. If you add in the leaked emails and cheating, Pool I guess should have won 2 more titles and Arsenal got plain robbed by Michael Oliver last season (how that wasn't investigated is beyond me), his record would look very different. Point being, biggest spender at a club accused of a decade of fraud = big question mark and not something I'd think 'wow, how did he do that?'
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Chelsea were huge spenders before as well. It's not a new thing. It's just that they have taken it to a level even City never been close to.

Again, Klopp spent less, they spent incredibly well. But the team he ended up with was a brilliant team, a team which realistically would have been dissapointed in not winning one Premier League. You also cannot just view every season in a vacuum - getting the same set of players to win four in a row and a lot of the same players six in seven is clearly not something many managers would be able to replicate. There's a reason someone liek Ancelotti never managed to defend a title and it's not because he's been at clubs that haven't got advantages over the rest of the league - it's because he's just not as good at doing that as Pep is.

You're also acting like City is the only club that gets to buy good players in the PL. Since Pep came to the PL it's undoubtly Manchester United which has signed the most established, world class players in the league. It's not really close either.
 
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I find it weird that he doesn't seem to know or remember basic vocabulary about his profession after living there for the better part of a decade. His pronunciation is also mediocre at best. He seemed to pick up the language quite fast and well initially, but he has obviously stagnated or even regressed for years now.
 
Demand a short squad, overwork them with the fixture congestion, get injuries during the season, complain about needing more players to cover the injuries, get big overpriced signings in January.
 
Pexbo said:
Is this down to Txiki Begiristain leaving and him not being happy with Hugo Viana’s ideas?
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More likely down to him recognising his squad doesn't currently have the quality to bridge the gap between them and Liverpool and Liverpool spending this summer will only extend that gap.
 
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