Three elite Premier League managers, three differing opinions over CAS

Pep Guardiola defended Manchester City’s spending and denied the approval of the comments Jurgen Klopp and Jose Mourinho had regarding the decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. 

Guardiola expressed his delight over the decision and the ban being overturned. He seemed ready to do anything to defend City’s name and clear all the doubts regarding the verdict.

Guardiola addressed the reporters on Tuesday in a pre-match conference to preview Wednesday’s game against relegation-threatened Bournemouth. Just before he recorded his statements, Jurgen Klopp and Jose Mourinho both fired indirect shots at the CAS, the former calling it a “bad day for football” and the latter calling it a “disgraceful decision.” 

Guardiola responding to their statements said, 

“All I say, for all their opinions, is I tell Jose and Jurgen it was a good day for football. A really good day. It was clear what happened. And that’s nice. I have my long history, I have a lot of respect not for just the manager of Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool but for all the managers I face.”

“But I don’t expect they are going to defend my club. But I wanted to defend my club, in the good and especially in the bad moments.” However, as per UEFA’s most recent Club Licensing Benchmarking Report, City’s 2018 spending of €282 million was the highest on record for any club but the more interesting fact is that their total squad cost of €971 million, the most expensive in history.

Despite all this Guardiola defended the Citizens by saying that Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea won the leagues as a result of a large amount of investments. He then said, “All the clubs spend a lot of money, the English teams spend a lot of money. We built a club in terms of the last decade. To compete with the elite of the Premier League and the Champions League, we needed to invest.”

featured image credits- goal.com