Guardiola can often get away with saying anything… but now…

 

• A different tale, a different view, a different analysis of football
• Beware the world cup and all its build up

By Tony Attwood

Several English newspapers are attacking Guardiola today, claiming as the MSN group of papers are, that he “has made a sizeable omission from his latest rant regarding Manchester City’s spending compared to their rivals.”  And given that Guardiola and Arteta are supposedly still on decent terms, what the former has said about the work of the latter is indeed rather distasteful.

The issue arose when the ManC boss was asked about the work of Hugo Viana, the sporting director, wondering if he deserved credit for ManC’s activities.   In reply, Guardiola announced in his normal manner that, “I am a little bit sad and upset because our net spend in the past five years we are seventh in the Premier League….  I don’t understand why the club has not spent more money…”

He then goes on to argue that the “other six teams have to win the Premier League and the Champions League and FA Cups,” have done so “because they have spent more in the past five years. This is a fact, it is not an opinion… So good luck for the six teams in front of us in the net spend for the last five years.”

Now, of course, many publications and broadcasters won’t ever argue with Guardiola, perhaps because they may fear having their press accreditation removed (I couldn’t possibly say as I don’t have press accreditation, so that’s not an accusation) but the BBC figures in such issues are normally considered the benchmark, and so those are what we use.   The BBC figures show Manchester City sixth on £324.7million net spend, not seventh.

Of course, that is just a tiny detail, but it made me want to look further.  Arsenal were the third top spenders on £610m.  Chelsea, as ever spent most.

But of course, there is more because although Guardiola likes to portray himself as the genius manager, the fact is that using Sheikh Mansour’s spare change, Mancini and Pellegrini built the squad so that by 2016 much was already largely in place.  Guardiola had to buy the right players, but a lot was already done in tetrms of  John Stones, Leroy Sane, Ilkay Gundogan, Claudio Bravo and Nolito. 

Although, after failing to win the league in 2016 Guardiola did it again with  Benjamin Mendy, Kyle Walker, Bernardo Silva, Ederson, Danilo and Aymeric Laporte.   And we might remember Kompany, Sterling, Aguero, De Bruyne, Silva, Fernandinho, Otamendi, Toure and Foden, who were already there.   Just compare that with the squad Emery left behind

So when Arteta arrived, he had Saka, Martinelli and Saliba (all under 21s).  That was it.   Arsenal’s record signing Nicolas Pépé was deemed not of the required standard and was not playing.  (Last summer he moved from Trabzonspor to Villarreal on a free.)

But let’s look at the spending on players by each manager from the moment Arteta turned up.   

Using Transfermarkt, as we usually do for transfer fees, following the utter disaster that was Emery, Arsenal have spent £944.4million on player transfers.  ManC have spent £1,109 million.  £165m more than Arsenal

Of course Manc have earned more from their sales than Arsenal, and that is easy to explain… Arteta had problems with selling players because the judgment of Emery was so bad that players were giving up.  Ozil and Aubameyang were just drifting by and picking up their money.  Ozil retired.  Auba left on a free.  You might also look at how Arteta is managing to pluck brilliance out of the Academy… but that takes us into another story.

However, it is also said that ManC can buy the players they get because players want to play for ManC and for their manager.   But that’s not quite right.   Indeed in the past, I have been critical of the www.football.london website, but it was they who got Deloitte to spill the beans in their Review of Football Finance, which shows that in the nine seasons from 2015/6 Arsenal spent £800m less on player salaries than ManC.  Another issue for the ManCman.

Of course, Arsenal’s spending on salaries has grown, but when Arteta first turned up, ManC was spending around 45% more a year on player salaries than Arsenal.   In the last four seasons for which full accounts are available ManC have spent a staggering 66% more on player wages than Arsenal have spent.  So maybe we should look at salaries as much as transfer fees.

In short, Arsenal are now above ManC in the league while spending less on player transfers and less on player salaries than ManC to.  But of course, the ManC manager knows he can say pretty much what he likes and the media will go down on bended knee and publish it.

Thank you to our sources linked above.  I am seriously, very grateful as I was really frustrated by the way ManC were getting away with saying some of that stuff.  It is great to have real information.