CITY V CHELSEA Guardiola bites back over UEFA chief’s jibe

PEP Guardiola hit back at UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin after City were accused of disrespecting the Champions League.

With VAR being used for the knockout rounds of the Champions League (introduced early in part because of shambolic decisions such as the Raheem Sterling penalty at home to Shakhtar), Ceferin made his unhappiness clear that just five of the managers left in the competition had turned up to a meeting in Germany about the technology on Monday.

“For me it’s not just a lack of respect for [UEFA’s chief refereeing officer] Roberto Rosetti’s team and UEFA’s organisation,” he added, “but the influence of coaches is huge and, if they complain about being refereed, they should at least come and see what the experts say about the use of VAR.”

Liverpool were excused because they had a game on the Monday night at West Ham, but Guardiola insisted not only that he was also busy with a game but also that a trusted member of his coaching staff had attended anyway.

“I respect what the UEFA president says but I don’t agree with him, I’m sorry,” he said.

“Brian Kidd was there. He travelled, he was there in the meeting and I have on my table the report about VAR.

“The problem was that on Wednesday we had a game and it was more important to be with my players because on Monday and Tuesday we had the training sessions and I could not travel.

“I would have travelled, I had the tickets, I was there and I was going but the Premier League decided to put the Everton game between Arsenal and Chelsea there. I couldn’t travel. So Mr Ceferin, in that case Manchester City were not in that position.” THERE is still a third of this Premier League season to go and Liverpool are best-placed to go on and win the title.

It is in the hands of Jurgen Klopp’s men, who will win the crown if they win all of their games – and may not need to given Pep Guardiola does not expect a flawless finish from his side.

So why do you get the feeling some of a Liverpool persuasion are getting their excuses in early?

Linking City success with money comes easily for many and there is undeniable truth in there. The club has spent more than half a billion pounds in transfer fees in the three seasons that Guardiola has been in charge, and as such have a formidable squad and one stronger than Liverpool’s – particularly in the midfield positions that the manager adores.

However, attempts this week to use City’s bench at Everton with Liverpool’s at West Ham to paint the title race as a David and Goliath story are simply and laughably wrong.

You could compare injuries at different points in the season given that it has taken 26 match weeks for City’s injury situation to be worse than Liverpool’s – even now, the sign of Kevin de Bruyne on the bench is more of a weakness for Guardiola given how much damage he caused last season on a football pitch.

You could point out how the two squads are built for different ambitions – City want to win four competitions, Liverpool want between one and two.

Having extra squad depth therefore doesn’t necessarily make any difference in a singular competition.

Eight Leicester players started at least 33 of a possible 38 games when they won the title without other distractions in 2016, and 11 started at least 28, nine Chelsea players started at least 29 when Antonio Conte’s men won the title the following year.

You could debate how long money matters for.

After saying that he would rather quit football than splash the cash on big-money buys, Klopp set a record in 2018 for the most money spent in a calendar year with £248m of imports. Liverpool have spent about £150m less than City since Guardiola walked through the Etihad doors but they have spent about £125m more over the last 12 months. More basic than any of these points though, is that any price comparison debates run the risk of asserting that whoever spends the most money wins, when only five times in 26 Premier League seasons has that been the case. What that instead indicates is a threshold for victory, an amount that allows a small number of teams the chance to win the title if other factors go their way. And while times can change, there is a special place in net-spend hell for anyone attempting to argue that a club able to spent worldrecord fees for central defenders and goalkeepers in the same year as splashing out more than £100m on