CITY Guardiola to splash on just a

PEP GUARDIOLA believes moneybags Manchester City are currently the poor relations to neighbours United in terms of bankbusting transfer deals.

Rival boss Jose Mourinho over at money-no-object Old Trafford splashed £89.3million bringing in Paul Pogba from Juventus in August 2016.

But City’s record fee is the £55m paid for Kevin De Bruyne exactly

12 months earlier.

Since then, United, Chelsea and Liverpool have all topped the De Bruyne price tag with big-money transfers.

And Guardiola, who backed off forking out Alexis Sanchez’s

£505,000 weekly wages when Mourinho did not hesitate, admits that his chequebook does stretch to £80m, £90m or £100m on

superstar signing.

The City boss has been told directly from above that despite the Abu Dhabi riches he still has a budget to honour.

So spending the whopping £142m his old club Barcelona shelled out for Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho is beyond his wildest dreams.

Ahead of today’s FA Cup Fourth Round trip to Cardiff, Guardiola said: “Maybe in the future it’s going to happen but we did not pay for one player £100million or £90million or £80million. We cannot pay right now.

“They tell me that we cannot. And the salaries we cannot pay. That is the truth. Of course we have spent a lot of money but the same money as a lot of teams.

“I can assure you we are not the only team in the world which spends money – there are many.”

But Guardiola is not fixated on those headline-grabbing, multi-million one-off transfers as he continues his bid to win the Quadruple for The Etihad outfit.

The City manager, who definitely