Say no Mour
Guardiola refuses to start fresh war of words with Mourinho
LONDON: Pep Guardiola refused to be drawn into a war of words with Jose Mourinho after Manchester City maintained their impressive progress towards the Premier League title.
City stretched their commanding advantage at the top to 15 points over Manchester United as Raheem Sterling sealed a 1-0 win at Newcastle to record an 18th consecutive league victory, one short of Bayern Munich’s current best for Europe’s top five leagues of 19 straight wins.
United manager Mourinho attempted to provoke Guardiola on Tuesday after pointing to their rivals’ huge spending power by claiming “City buy fullbacks for the price of strikers” and insisting that the £300mil (RM1.6bil) he has spent since taking charge at Old Trafford 18 months ago as “not enough”.
Mourinho paid £93mil (RM509mil) to sign France midfielder Paul Pogba, while also recruiting £30mil (RM164mil) defender Eric Bailly, and midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan for £26.3mil (RM144mil).
This year, United spent £75mil (RM410mil) on striker Romelu Lukaku, as well as £31mil (RM170mil) on defender Victor Lindelof and £40mil (RM219mil) for midfielder Nemanja Matic.
In comparison, City bought three defenders – Kyle Walker from Tottenham for an initial £45mil (RM246mil), Benjamin Mendy from Monaco for
£52mil (RM285mil) and
Danilo from Real
Madrid for
£26.5mil
(RM145mil) as part of a summer outlay that topped
£200mil
(RM1bil).
When asked about the comments made by the Portuguese,
Guardiola said: “I’m so delighted to be here to speak about what happened on the pitch.
“About what happened with my colleague speaking off the pitch in the press conference, I’m not the right guy. You want to talk about what happened today on the pitch, I will answer.”
City remain on course to win the title in record time after equalling Chelsea’s English top flight record of 11 consecutive away wins.
City face a minimum of eight games in 34 days in a hectic start to the New Year, and Guardiola added: “Of course we are happy to break records but when we prepare for games we don’t speak about them. Until now, we have found a way to win.” —