WAITING KANE
Pep warns City may move on
PEP GUARDIOLA has delivered a potentially devastating blow to Harry Kane by insisting he would be “more than happy” with his squad if Manchester City fail to land the Tottenham striker.
City have refused to give up on trying to prise Kane away from Tottenham and are willing to smash the British transfer record again by offering £120million for the England captain. But if Spurs chairman Daniel Levy refuses
By and to negotiate, then Guardiola warned he is ready to move on following the £100m capture of Jack Grealish.
On the prospect of facing the season without further additions, the City manager said: “Absolutely, more than happy. It’s the same team except Jack Grealish for Sergio Aguero.” Even without Kane, Guardiola believes his team are good enough to challenge on all fronts again.
“I don’t have any doubts because of what they have done so far for many, many years and it’s not just over one part of the season,” he said.
“The main group of people and mentality are the same, and I know they want to do it.
“Football is unpredictable and anything can happen, but I am more than optimistic
PEP GUARDIOLA says Jack Grealish needs time to settle in at Manchester City after his record £100million move.
Grealish has yet to find his feet at City and has failed to make an impact in his first two appearances.
The playmaker has yet to score or make an assist as the champions have struggled to get going.
But Guardiola believes it is only natural that Grealish needs time, having spent his whole career at Aston Villa, and says the team will support him.
“Everyone needs time, not just Jack,” said the City manager. “Everyone needs time to do it, him a little bit more because he is new.
“The team is going to help Jack to be who he is and he is going to help us be the team we want to be.”
Grealish is not the only City player yet to click as the reigning Premier League champions have looked off colour in their 1-0 defeats by Leicester in the Community Shield and Tottenham last Sunday. City have lost their opening two games to a season for the first time since 1989 and Guardiola accepts they need three points against Norwich today at the Etihad.
He wants an improvement on their display at Spurs, when he was unhappy with several aspects of their play. “We have 111 points to play for so we have to play 37 games and I cannot deny we would prefer to have three points already, but we now have the chance to pick up the first three,” he said.
“It’s the second fixture.There are still many games and many things can happen this season. I would like to see the team better in many aspects than they were against Spurs.
Aspects like the distances between lines, our accuracy in not losing simple balls, the physical condition in the final third, defending the set pieces better.
“I would have preferred to play better against Tottenham and to have won the game. There are a thousand things and you cannot work on them in just one week but we have spoken and we will see.”
Guardiola, who revealed that Kevin De Bruyne could miss today’s game with an ankle injury picked up in training, is looking forward to seeing Canaries head coach Daniel Farke, left.
They hit it off when they met and Guardiola admires what the German has done at Carrow Road.
“There are relationships you feel more about than others,” he said. “He’s a German person, I worked there and I like the way they play.
“They were brilliant in the first 20 minutes against Liverpool last Saturday and then Liverpool, from their first chance, scored a goal.
“I like what they are. I liked the support he had at Norwich when they were relegated and now he has signed a contract for many years.”