Guardiola is a €1 BILLION failure

Carlo Garganese

Updated: 4 May 2022 22:40 BST
4 min read

When Pep Guardiola signed Jack Grealish from Aston Villa last summer for €117.5 million (£100m), it was a landmark deal for several reasons.

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Firstly, it gave Grealish entry into a unique club of players to have moved for a nine-figure sum. Not only that, it was a deal that broke the Premier League record for transfer fee paid and also made the attacker the most expensive Englishman in the history of the game.

One record, though, that Man City have not been promoting, however, is that it carried Pep Guardiola’s transfer spending at the club to over €1 billion.

Indeed, the Grealish purchase meant that the former Barcelona boss had spent €1.02bn in player purchases with City alone.

Guardiola is a head coach who critics point out has always benefited from favourable conditions. At Barcelona it was having a golden generation of players to work with, at Bayern Munich it was boasting the club’s outrageous dominance over their rivals and at Manchester City it has been spending power like no other coach has ever enjoyed.

Remarkably, the €1bn mark was reached in only five years at the club, meaning that the average annual spend tops €200m. It will rise even higher this coming summer as Julian Alvarez is joining from River Plate for €17m and Erling Haaland is set to arrive from Borussia Dortmund for €75m. They will not be the only ones.

© ProShots - Karim Benzema scored the winner vs Man City in extra time on Wednesday

Of the club’s 14 most expensive purchases of all time for Man City, 12 of these have come during the Guardiola era. The only ones who did not are Kevin De Bruyne, who can legitimately stake a claim for being the club’s greatest ever player, and Raheem Sterling.

Man City's record signings

Name	From	Fee (€m)
Jack Grealish	Aston Villa	117.5
Kevin De Bruyne	Wolfsburg	76
Ruben Dias	Benfica	68
Riyad Mahrez	Leicester	67.8
Joao Cancelo	Juventus	65
Aymeric Laporte	Club Athletic	65
Raheem Sterling	Liverpool	63.7
Rodri	Atletico Madrid	62.7
Benjamin Mendy	Monaco	57.5
John Stones	Everton	55.6

While the signing of Grealish was the first time that Guardiola broke the club’s transfer record – the previous mark was set by De Bruyne’s 2015 arrival from Wolfsburg – he has spent consistently lavish funds.

Indeed, Man City’s transfer hallmark in recent years has been signing players around the £60m mark, typified by the arrival of Ruben Dias from Benfica in 2020. But while Dias undoubtedly strengthened the defence, allowing the whole style of the team to develop, Guardiola has so far fallen short of City’s big goal.

Winning the Champions League.

On Wednesday, he fell short again as Real Madrid launched another incredible late comeback with two injury-time goals from Rodrygo to force extra time. A Karim Benzema penalty in extra time meant that Madrid beat Man City 6-5 on aggregate in their semi-final.

The Champions League is the target of Man City’s owners.

They didn't bring Pep to the Etihad to win Premier League titles. Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini had already done that.

Pep was supposed to bring them European dominance and yet in six years in which he has spent over €1bn he has only reached one losing final. It is not good enough, it is a failure.