Skip to main content

Toure won’t play until he says sorry- Guardiola


City Manager, Pep Guardiola
Yaya Toure will not play again for Manchester City until the player’s camp apologises for comments made by his agent, manager Pep Guardiola vowed on Tuesday.

Dimitri Seluk accused the City manager of “humiliating” Toure, 33, by leaving him out of the club’s Champions League squad at the start of this month.

The Ivorian midfielder, who announced his retirement from international duty on Tuesday, has not figured in a single City match-day squad since then.

“The day after that, his agent spoke and in that moment, Yaya is out,” Guardiola told a press conference.

“Unless Mr Dimitri Seluk comes back to the press or to his friends in the media –- because he hasn’t the courage to call me, he goes to the media and apologises to Manchester City first of all, then his team-mates and afterwards the trainer…

“When that happens, Yaya will be part of the group and he will have the chance to play.”

While Guardiola said that Seluk should say sorry for his comments, the club later indicated the manager wanted an apology from Toure.

Toure has recovered from a migraine that made him unavailable for Saturday’s 4-0 Premier League win over Bournemouth, but he will not be considered for Wednesday’s League Cup tie at Swansea City.

Seluk had said: “If he (Guardiola) wins the Champions League for City this season, then I will travel to England and I will say on television that Pep Guardiola is the best manager in the world.

“But if City don’t win the Champions League, then I hope that Pep has got the balls to say that he was wrong to humiliate a great player like Yaya.”

Toure, who is in the final year of his contract at the Etihad Stadium, has featured just once for City since Guardiola’s arrival.

He played the full 90 minutes of their Champions League play-off second-leg victory over Steaua Bucharest in August.

Guardiola added: “I cannot accept as a coach that every agent, when his player doesn’t play, goes to the media and speaks.

“I know how much Dimitri Seluk loves Yaya Toure. If he loves him, show me by apologising to Manchester City for what he said in the papers.”

Guardiola said that, as a player at Barcelona in the early 1990s, he would never have dared to allow his agent to speak out against Dutch legend Johan Cruyff, then the club’s manager.

“I cannot imagine in my day when a player’s agent would go to the media and speak against Johan Cruyff,” he said.

“Maybe it’s the new era, but I’m from the old generation, and an old-generation agent has to make his players his job and the coach his job.

“Today agents believe they are more than they are. If you have a problem, we can talk. Until he speaks, Yaya isn’t going to play.”

Guardiola said the decision to omit Toure from his Champions League squad had not been an easy one.

“It was so difficult for me to leave him out of the Champions League squad. So difficult,” he said.

“I know him and I know he’s a good guy. It was difficult as well for Aleix Garcia.”

Toure has been at City since 2010 and has won two Premier League titles, two League Cups and one FA Cup during that time.

While he will play no part at Swansea, captain Vincent Kompany could return, having not played since April after undergoing groin and thigh surgery.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chelsea preparing world-record Bonucci bid

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovic has told manager Antonio Conte that a January move for Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci could be on the cards. According to reports from the Telegraph, the Russian businessman is prepared to bankroll a number of new signings in the New Year as the Blues look to retain the Premier League trophy. Bonucci would command a world-record fee for a defender, expected to be in the region of £50 million, should he move to Stamford Bridge.
Post a Comment
Read more

Turkey bomb victims ‘mostly children’surviving

Most of the victims of the bombing of a Kurdish wedding party in the Turkish city of Gaziantep on Saturday were children, media reports have said. Twenty-nine victims were under the age of 18, reports said, with one official saying 22 were under the age of 14. The death toll rose to 54 yesterday. The suicide bomber himself was a child aged between 12 and 14, President Recep Tayyip One woman lost four children in the attack, Emine Arhan, said yesterday: “If it wasn’t for my only surviving child, I would have killed myself.” Another victim was a nine-year-old girl who had stayed on at the party to see the bride after her parents had left, according to reports. A disproportionately large number of women and children were killed in the attack because it targeted henna night, a part of the celebration attended mainly by women and children. Turkish officials said the type of bomb used, which contained scraps of metal, was similar to those used in previous attacks on pro-Kurdish gatherings. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Conte: Chelsea must learn to kill matches

Chelsea manager Antonio Conte says his side must learn to kill off matches quicker following their 3-2 League Cup win over Bristol Rovers. Michy Batshuayi scored two goals either side of a Victor Moses strike at Stamford Bridge to send the home side into the third round, but they were given a fright when the visitors twice halved a two-goal deficit through Peter Hartley and an Ellis Harrison penalty. The victory is Conte's third in competitive matches as Chelsea boss, following 2-1 wins over West Ham and Watford in the Premier League - both of which came about thanks to late goals from Diego Costa. And the former Italy boss wants his players to become more ruthless in their approach in order to prevent similarly nervy encounters in future. "These games are very tough," he told BBC Radio London Sport. "When you dominate the game, you must kill the game. In this case, we didn't do this. "It's a pity because when you're playing very well, creating a lot...
Post a Comment
Read more