If money in football can't buy you happiness, it won't eliminate the petty moaning of Premier League managers either. Pep Guardiola is in such an irascible mood today, as his Man City team travel to play Burnley in the Premier League.
Leroy Sane, David Silva, John Stones, Fabian Delph, Gabriel Jesus and Benjamin Mendy are all absent through injury, but in spite of his enormous squad and even larger academy system, Guardiola has elected to name just six substitutes for the match. Teams are allowed to name seven.
Guardiola did explain his decision to name just six subs, and not call up any of his academy players to pad out the bench:
We don’t have any more players, that is thee reason why. We have one goalkeeper and five players. ‘We could take one from second team but they played a game yesterday.
This doesn't fully stand up, however. 19-year-old forward Lukas Nmecha has been training with first team, and didn't play in that second team game last night (a defeat to Swansea's under-23s). Yet Guardiola decided not to name him in the squad for the trip to Burnley, preferring to have some empty space.
This makes no sense from a football point of view, so it can probably be taken as Guardiola making a point to his bosses at City at his dissatisfaction at the failure to sign Riyad Mahrez on transfer deadline day.
For Guardiola, the manager with more resources available to him than any other football manager on the planet to be engaging in this type of nonsense and politicking is exceptionally petty.
