Man City Felt Messi Would Remain At Barcelona – Pep Guardiola

Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola has come out to react to reports linking Lionel Messi to his club. He recently revealed the club already spent most of its transfer budget on Jack Grealish.

According to him, the English midfielder will wear the No.10 because Man City was convinced that Messi would stay at Barcelona.

He added that the Argentine forward’s exit from the Spanish club is still very surprising and he would’ve loved to see him retire at Barca.

His words, “We spent £40m on Jack Grealish. We paid £100m and brought in £60m.”

“He will wear the No.10 because we were convinced with Grealish and we were were convinced Leo would continue at Barcelona, so right now he is not in our thoughts.”

On Messi, “It looked like it finished well in terms of him continuing with Barcelona. It was a surprise for everyone – me included.”

“The president was clear today. I didn’t speak with the player or the president so I don’t know what has happened but as a supporter of the club I would love for him to have finished there, but today the club needs to be sustainable and what happened in the last year was really not good.”

“As a fan, I have incredible gratitude for the most extraordinary player I have seen in my life, for the titles he helped to Barcelona, to help me personally to go to Munich and then to England.”

“More than that, the incredible amount of feelings and actions in front of the TV and watching what he can do with the ball, with his mates in one football game.”

“Day by day, game by game, every three days he made something unique. All I can say is thank you so much for bringing Barcelona to another level, to allow Barcelona to dominate the world for a decade, and I wish him the best for the last few years of his career.”

“He will not be forgotten. Hopefully one day we can say the best ever because he deserves it.”

“If president Laporta arrives in this situation, he should do it unfortuantely because someone before didn’t do well.”