Man City news this week: Is this the real reason why Pep Guardiola wants Lionel Messi speculation to stop?

Camp Nou rift | Lionel Messi has been at loggerheads with the Barcelona hierarchy
Getty Images

As long as Lionel Messi kicks a ball in anger, the Manchester City question will remain.

Pep Guardiola was asked about the possibility of signing the Barcelona superstar on the very first day he was presented to City fans - and has stuck to the script ever since.

“He is playing for Barcelona and he will stay there, that’s my wish.”

Yet Etihad chiefs can’t have failed to be alerted by Messi’s very public fall-out with Barca last week.

They are totally convinced that City would be his no1 choice if he walked away from Camp Nou. And why not? Barca are the model they have built their modern day image upon.

Messi has strong relationships with City CEO Ferran Soriano and director of football Txiki Begiristain. Then, of course, there is Guardiola, with whom he won two Champions League titles.

Messi scored a hat-trick on Sunday as Barcelona came from behind to beat Real Betis Photo: AFP via Getty Images
AFP via Getty Images

It is the perfect fit. And with Messi added to City’s glittering squad, who would bet against them finally achieving their ultimate ambition of conquering Europe?

But the opportunity of working with Messi again would present Guardiola with a certain dilemma.

Sources close to him have said winning the Champions League without Messi is a personal goal, having failed to do so in three attempts with Bayern Munich, while he is in the middle of his fourth tilt with City.

Should Messi rock up in the summer and immediately lead City to club football’s biggest prize, then Guardiola would face the same old jibes.

Then there is the money. Even as a free agent, Messi’s salary of £57.2million-a-year makes him out of reach of all but a handful of clubs.

Those numbers would stretch even City’s spending power.

That said, if they get close to their £137m valuation of Bayern Munich target Leroy Sane in the summer, it would cover more than two years of Messi’s wages.

Not a bad swap.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in