WE DON’T NEED YOU! Pep: City strong enough without Alexis
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PEP GUARDIOLA insists his Manchester City side do not need Alexis Sanchez.
The City boss wanted to sign the Chile and Arsenal ace but decided against it after refusing to get drawn into a bidding war with Manchester United.
Sanchez, 29, is now expected to go on and join Guardiola’s bitter rivals, but the Spaniard could not care less.
The former Barcelona boss, whose side host Newcastle tonight, is convinced the league leaders can continue to rule the roost without Sanchez.
He is more than happy with his strike duo, Sergio Aguero and Jesus, and says Raheem Sterling is more than capable of filling in.
Guardiola said: “We have the two strikers and we do not need another one in that position.
“Other players can play there in different circumstances.
“To buy a striker who can only play there – that is not going to happen.
“Raheem can play there. He did it at Old Trafford and in the States in pre-season.
Risked
“He showed me that he can handle that pressure. He’s more of a winger, a No 10, but we are not going to buy a striker.”
United are willing to hand Sanchez a long-term deal worth £500,000 a week.
This would make him the third highest-paid star in world football and Guardiola admits he was not prepared to match the offer.
He reckons giving Sanchez such a big deal would have risked destabilising the whole wage structure of his squad.
The City boss admits he would never pile pressure on his Etihad bosses to pay too much for a transfer target, despite prices spiralling following Neymar’s £200m move to Paris St-Germain from Barca in the summer.
He added: “The market is the market. Normally we try to be stable with the wages of the players because I think it is good for the team and stability of the club.
“It’s £50m today, but years ago it was £20m. In the past, what the club did was at that price. Maybe in the future the club will spend more than £100m on one player.
“We need to change the squad and, of course, what happened with Neymar meant everything increased amazingly.
“You have to adapt to that. I think the price this summer will be higher than this winter. Sometimes you have to anticipate that.
“But I’ve never put pressure on a club when they believe it is too much. Immediately I accept that decision and move forward to find another solution. The stability of the club is the most important thing.
“We’ve spent a lot of money, we can’t deny that. But in my period at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and now here, I never pushed the pressure on the club to say, ‘I want those players’ when the club says it’s too much.”