Pep Guardiola has revealed that super-agent Mino Raiola offered him Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan in January.
Guardiola was asked about his rivalry with United manager Jose Mourinho ahead of Saturday’s Manchester derby which could see City clinch the Premier League title.
The Catalan said he had bigger rivalries than with the Portuguese boss before, saying he doesn’t understand Raiola’s attack after he had offered him his players “like wo months ago.”
“I’ll give you a huge list of my big rivalries, believe me,” Guardiola told a news conference. “I never won [against] Mourinho and he never beat me, our teams beat the other ones, so I don’t play against Jose. He doesn’t play against me.
“Sometimes his teams, they beat me, sometimes I beat him, it’s simple like that. After that we are in our careers, we are still in the business and we’ll play 1,000 times more.”
Asked about his rivalries, Guardiola added: “Finally, the people discover my secrets, I am a bad guy. I’m a coward.
“I don’t understand why I am such a so bad guy. I never speak with him so his influence on my opinion, so I don’t know maybe for Ibra explained many things about me.
“But being a guy like two months ago [why did] he offer me Mkhitaryan and Pogba to play with us.
“Why did he offer [them]? He was interested in Mkhitaryan and Pogba playing with us. So I’m like a guy, so he has to protect his players and he has to know so he cannot bring the players a guy like me, like a dog.
“And comparing a dog is bad. It’s not good. He has to respect the dogs.”
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