“It looks like there are four clubs in the world who can do it constantly. Madrid, Barcelona, City and PSG. Whatever they need, they do,” Klopp had said. City and Liverpool meet tomorrow in the Community Shield, the curtain raiser for the English top-flight season.
And Guardiola lit the fuse on the early clash between the two teams who are likely to slug it out for the Premier League title when he insisted Klopp was wrong to float the idea City only succeed because they out-spend everyone.
“It bothers me,” Guardiola told reporters yesterday. “Of course it bothers me because it’s not true that we spend £200mn in every transfer market. That is not true. This is Liverpool, ‘you’ll never walk alone’ and all that, so it’s not a small team. It’s Liverpool. So of course I do not like it because it is not true. Last season we had a net spend of £17mn on one player.”
That one individual was Riyad Mahrez, and his transfer fee of £60mn ($72.7mn) was dwarfed by Liverpool’s £75mn swoop for Virgil van Dijk and then world record for a goalkeeper of £67mn on Alisson Becker. This summer, City broke their transfer record with the £62mn capture of Atletico Madrid midfielder Rodri.
But that is nothing compared with the extravagances of the two Spanish giants, with Real and Barca both spending more than £100mn on a single player in Eden Hazard and Antoine Griezmann respectively. Guardiola accepts that his major reinforcements were made in 2017 when he signed Kyle Walker, Ederson, Bernardo Silva, Benjamin Mendy and Danilo, but it has been more measured since then.
“Two seasons ago if we spent a lot it’s because I took over the team and we had 10 or 11 players over 30 years old, so we had to do it,” he said. “But we cannot spend £200mn every season. For example, last season Liverpool spent more than £200mn, and they cannot do it this season, but it’s the same.
“Today clubs cannot spend a lot of money every single season. I don’t know about other clubs, but if they can do it, they can do it. That’s why there is financial fair play and if something is wrong, clubs that are not correct will be punished. That’s a reality.”
The Spanish manager led City to an unprecedented domestic treble last season but said it counts for nothing when the new season gets underway. “We won almost every trophy (last season), not all of them,” Guardiola said.
“It was quite remarkable. We know each other better now than the first season. That’s easier for our job. We start from zero now, we start again. But we are ready to accept the challenge.”
Guardiola also reserved praise for Klopp, having faced him many times in the Bundesliga, too, when he was at Bayern and Klopp was at Borussia Dortmund. Liverpool ran City close in a tense Premier League title race last season, narrowly finishing one point behind the champions on the final day, but Klopp did later lead his side to their sixth European Cup.
“(He is a) class manager, top manager,” Guardiola said. “He played quite similar in Dortmund an incredible challenge every time we face his teams and his message is always positive. I think he’s so good for football. His message is always positive, sometimes some exceptions but most of the time always good.”
Guardiola confirmed goalkeeper Claudio Bravo, who missed the majority of last season due to an Achilles injury, would play in the season’s curtain raiser tomorrow and that all South American players except for Fernandinho were back in training.