According to UK Telegraph, Manchester City are now planning an expensive overhaul of their squad to affirm their ambition to become a global superpower and that could mean the addition of a global super-star. A play for Lionel Messi is not impossible.
City confirmed on Monday, at the prompting of the now outgoing manager Manuel Pellegrini, that Guardiola is on his way to the hugely-ambitious club having agreed a three-year contract which will pay him at least £15million-a-year.
That is a £45million deal which will comfortably make Guardiola the highest-paid manager in the Premier League.It has long been maintained in football circles that City had landed Guardiola who, before Christmas, announced he would be leaving Bayern Munich at the end of this season when his contract expires.
City admitted their interest but disputed a deal has been in place up until now. However Pellegrini said he knew “a month ago” that he was losing his job to Guardiola and wanted to end the speculation.
There were suggestions that City had fought off late bids from both Manchester United and Chelsea for Guardiola but those claims were summarily dismissed by senior sources at both of those clubs. They insisted that they knew the Spaniard was going to City United briefed as such in early December - and that a deal was agreed several months ago.
Whatever the timetable there was an interesting point made in the press release issued by City which revealed that the negotiations to hire Guardiola had been “a recommencement of discussions that were curtailed in 2012”. Including that detail was to show that Pellegrini always knew he was second-choice to Guardiola and would make way if he became available.
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