Pep Guardiola threatens to ‘quit’ Man City over summer transfer plan: ‘I will not stay’
Man City boss Pep Guardiola has insisted that he will “quit” the Citizens if they continue to bloat his squad ahead of next season.
Guardiola’s side won their final home game of the season 3-1 against Bournemouth on Tuesday night as Kevin De Bruyne waved farewell to the Etihad Stadium.
Man City will end a season without a trophy for the first time in eight years after losing the FA Cup final 1-0 on Saturday to Crystal Palace.
They have had a miserable campaign by their standards in the Premier League with Liverpool romping to the title after Man City had won the previous four.
After a poor start to the new season, Man City bought Omar Marmoush, Nico Gonzalez, Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis and Juma Bah to the club in the January transfer window.
But Guardiola thinks his squad is now too big and he’s told the Man City hierarchy that he “will quit” if they don’t streamline it for him this summer.
Guardiola said after Man City beat Bournemouth on Tuesday night: “I said to the club, ‘I don’t want that’, I don’t want to put five, six players in the tribune, I don’t want that. I will quit. If they don’t make a short squad, I will not stay.
“It’s impossible for my soul to put the players in the tribune and cannot play. Now it happened because we added four players… maybe three or four months we could not select eleven players, we didn’t have defenders, it was so difficult. After people came back and next season it cannot be like that.
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“As a manager, I cannot be training 24 players and every time I select there has to be four, five, six staying in Manchester at home because they can’t play.
“This isn’t going to happen. This is not going to happen – I said to the club I don’t want that.
“I do not want to have 24, 25, 26 players and when everybody’s fit… if I have injuries, unlucky.
“We have some players in the academy, we do it but we cannot sustain for the emotional, for the soul of the team, I couldn’t create another connection between each other.
“This season we lost it a little bit, but with the players like they know week by week [if] they stay at home. They have to be here to fight between them to play, there has to be the right number, if there are a lot of injuries… unlucky. But we have to do it.”
