City boss Guardiola said no to Sanchez-Sterling swap

LONDON: Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola personally made sure Raheem Sterling (pic) would not be allowed to join Arsenal in a swap deal for Alexis Sanchez.

The two clubs spent transfer deadline day locked in talks over City’s desire to sign Sanchez, only for the deal to collapse because Arsenal were unable to sign their preferred replacement, Monaco winger Thomas Lemar.

At one point Sterling was mooted as a potential makeweight in the Sanchez deal but Guardiola said he was determined not to allow the 22-year-old England forward to leave.

“When we started to speak with Arsenal in the last days before it was not impossible, they wanted to make a swap with Raz,” Guardiola told reporters at the City Football Academy in Manchester on Friday.

“And they talked to me and I said: ‘No chance. Zero chance. Not one per cent chance’ to take a swap deal with Alexis because I have a lot of trust in Raz.

“He is 22 years old, an English player and he has a lot of gap (potential) to improve. So the only thing we can do if possible is to try and do a deal with cash.

“We tried to make an offer that they would accept but in the end they could not sign the player they wanted and Alexis stayed with Arsenal.”

City were reported to have agreed a fee of around £60mil (RM332mil) for Sanchez, who played under Guardiola at Barcelona.

The 28-year-old Chile forward is out of contract at the end of the sea- son but Guardiola was coy when asked if City would reactivate their interest in him in one of the next two transfer windows.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the wintertime or next season,” said Guardiola.

“He’s an Arsenal player. Of course we were interested in him. At the end Arsenal decided not to sell him. So all the best for Alexis. I know him from Barcelona.

“And that’s all. Sometimes the deals work, sometimes not. We will see in the future.”