Man City Boss Pep Guardiola Hits Back Against Criticism Over Big Spending and Calls for Perspective

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has called for perspective with regard to his huge spending at the club so far.

The Spaniard has spent around £450m in the 18 months he has been at the helm at the Etihad, with huge fees having been shelled out on the likes of Ilkay Gundogan, Leroy Sane, Gabriel Jesus, John Stones, Ederson, Bernardo Silva, Benjamin Mendy, Kyle Walker and Danilo.

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And the Citizens today announced that Aymeric Laporte has officially signed from Athletic Bilbao in a deal reported to be £57m - a new club record.

Guardiola has certainly flashed the cash during his time in England, but defended his high spending by offering some perspective on what is an ever-inflating transfer market.

As quoted by BBC reporter Simon Stone, the ex-Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss said: "I understand criticism but we have spent £300m on six players. Others have done it on two. 

"We had a lot of older players out of contract. To compete we needed to spend. A club can decide to spend on two players. We did it in a different way."

The 'others' he may be referring to could be his former club Barca, who have signed Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho for huge fees and Paris Saint-Germain, who forked out a world record £198m to sign Neymar and will have to spend £166m to sign Kylian Mbappe permanently this summer.