PRESSURE? WAD PRESSURE?
PEP GUARDIOLA claims he does not feel under increased pressure this season – despite ending his first year at Manchester City emptyhanded.
That debut campaign was the first time the decorated Spaniard, who enjoyed glittering spells at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, failed to win a trophy as a manager. City have moved to address that failure by lavishing more than £200million on new signings this summer, including £43m on Monaco midfelder Bernardo Silva (left). That spree saw the Blues installed as favourites to win the Premier League title. But Guardiola, who admitted he would have been sacked by Barca and Bayern if he failed to win a trophy, said he is not feeling the heat ahead of a make-or-break season.
“It’s the same pressure as I had last season,” said Guardiola. “We are here to win games and titles. But it is never a big problem. I’m honest in my job.
“I felt the same pressure as when I arrived at Barcelona. People said we were favourites. We had to deal with that and handle that.”
City trailed leaders Chelsea by a single point in early December last season, but lost 3-1 at home to Antonio Conte’s side and were 10 points adrift of the eventual champions by the end of the year.
Guardiola’s side eventually finished 15 points adrift of Chelsea, and the 46-year-old knows he cannot afford a repeat of that failure, hence City’s huge investment this summer.
But Guardiola defended City’s mega spend, insisting it was a one-off this to bring the age of the squad down, and said such huge investment would not be the norm going forward.
City spent £130m on three full-backs, including £54m on Kyle Walker, and Guardiola said: “Hope- fully I’ll be here next season and we won’t need to spend like this. Six players were out of contract and in the last six or seven years, we didn’t buy any full-backs.
“We didn’t have full-backs and you have to buy full-backs.
“We bought three and the market is so demanding for all the teams not just us. In the next three or four years we will buy one, two, maybe three players. But that’s not what happened this summer.
“We needed to do that because we had one of the oldest teams in Europe – not just the Premier League – and we had to change it.”