Related News
Pep refuses to take Jose鈥檚 bait
Print Edition
Pep Guardiola refused to be drawn into a war of words with Jose Mourinho after Manchester City maintained its impressive progress towards the English Premier League title.
City stretched its commanding advantage at the top to 15 points over Manchester United as Raheem Sterling sealed a 1-0 win at Newcastle United to record an 18th consecutive league victory, one short of Bayern Munich鈥檚 current best for Europe鈥檚 top five leagues of 19 straight wins.
United manager Mourinho tried to provoke Guardiola on Tuesday after pointing to his huge spending power by claiming 鈥淐ity buy fullbacks for the price of strikers鈥 and insisting the 300 million pounds (US$402 million) he has spent since taking charge at Old Trafford 18 months ago as 鈥渘ot enough鈥.
Mourinho paid 93 million pounds to sign France midfielder Paul Pogba, while also recruiting 30-million pound defender Eric Bailly, and midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan for 26.3 million pounds.
This year, United spent 75 million pounds on striker Romelu Lukaku, as well as 31 million pounds on defender Victor Lindelof and 40 million pounds for midfielder Nemanja Matic.
In comparison, City bought three defenders 鈥 Kyle Walker from Tottenham for an initial 45 million pounds, Benjamin Mendy from Monaco for 52 million pounds and Danilo from Real Madrid for 26.5 million pounds as part of a summer outlay that topped 200 million pounds.
When asked about the comments made by the Portuguese, Guardiola said: 鈥淚鈥檓 so delighted to be here to speak about what happened on the pitch.
鈥淎bout what happened with my colleague speaking off the pitch in the press conference, I鈥檓 not the right guy. You want to talk about what happened today on the pitch, I will answer.鈥
Mourinho鈥檚 gripe about City鈥檚 spending power met little sympathy in north London with Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger saying he had learned to deal with his club鈥檚 inability to compete with the financial elite for more than two decades.
鈥淚 have been in that position for 21 years so I will not start to complain now. There is always one team, sometimes four, who were richer than I was, so I learnt to cope with that and to deal with that,鈥 Wenger told the British media.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 娌狪CP璇侊細娌狪CP澶05050403鍙-1
- |
- 浜掕仈缃戞柊闂讳俊鎭湇鍔¤鍙瘉锛31120180004
- |
- 缃戠粶瑙嗗惉璁稿彲璇侊細0909346
- |
- 骞挎挱鐢佃鑺傜洰鍒朵綔璁稿彲璇侊細娌瓧绗354鍙
- |
- 澧炲肩數淇′笟鍔＄粡钀ヨ鍙瘉锛氭勃B2-20120012
Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
