Guardiola loses his cool after another Manchester City red card

Pep Guardiola believes Manchester City are being harshly treated by officials and admits he has taken time to adapt to the style of football in the Premier League.

Guardiola was in a tetchy mood despite City’s 2-1 victory over Burnley on Monday as he vented his frustrations over the first half dismissal of Brazilian midfielder Fernandinho.

It was Fernandinho’s third red card in six weeks and City’s seventh in 30 games this season, but Guardiola reacted sarcastically to being questioned over whether his side had a disciplinary problem.

“Yes, from the team with the most ball possession. Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Guardiola.

“We had a lot of disciplinary problems. Now we expect what the FA decide.

“We try to play football, don’t forget it. My teams always in my career try to play football. I cannot control the other circumstances.”

To compound Guardiola’s bad mood, he felt that Burnley’s goal from Ben Mee should have been disallowed for a foul on City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo as he issued another sarcastic reply to a question about Fernandinho’s red card.

“It is always our fault, it’s always City’s fault,” he snapped. “Yeah, yeah. I saw other games. All around the world, the Burnley goal on Claudio Bravo is a foul.

“Here, and all around the world, the rules say the goalkeeper in the six yard box cannot be touched. He goes here and the striker does this (slaps his arm).

“But I saw (Marteen) Stekelenburg Everton v Middlesbrough at the beginning of the season and it was the same, it was a goal.

“Okay, so I have to adapt and I have to understand there are special rules here in England. Now I learn, so now we’re going to play.

“I saw the foul for Claudio Bravo, that was definite.”

– Sarcastic –
Burnley manager Sean Dyche, whose side was undone by goals from Gael Clichy and substitute Sergio Aguero, believed that City should have finished the game with nine men after Bacary Sagna was booked for kicking out at George Boyd as the winger tried to retrieve the ball to speed up kick-off following the visitors’ goal.

“It’s a tough one but it’s a sending off because he swipes out at Boydie,” said Dyche.

“He was trying to get the ball back and go to the centre circle.

“The linesman was a long way from it and the referee was running back towards the centre so maybe the linesman saw enough to give a yellow but not enough to understand it’s a kick out.”

Fernandinho now faces a four-game suspension, starting with Friday’s FA Cup visit to West Ham, and with German international Ilkay Gundogan ruled out by long-term injury, City are short on numbers in midfield.

The City manager also seemed dissatisfied with his own supporters at the start of the second half, gesturing for them to give his team increased support as they sought a badly-needed victory.

“We need their support. These players deserve their support,” said Guardiola.

“We are going to try and play as best as possible but we need their support.”

Earlier, however, the City manager had been even more sarcastic and confrontational in an interview with a BBC reporter when asked whether he thought Fernandinho had deserved his red card.

“You’re the journalist not me. Ask the referee not me,” he said.

“We’ll accept. The team with more ball possession, we have always sendings-off.

“I have to understand the rules here in England. I know you are specialist and I have to understand that.”

Report: Manchester United have biggest wage bill in world football

Manchester United have the highest wages in world football according to a global sports salary survey, produced annually by the Sporting Intelligence website.

United's first-team squad earn £5.77 million-a-year basic salary on average, which is £110,961-per-week. That is reportedly more than double the average basic first-team pay in England's top division, which is £2,438,275-a-year or £48,766-a-week.

The club are the fourth highest paid in world sport, behind Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA (£6.54m average), New York Yankees of the MLB (£5.81m) and LA Clippers of the NBA (£5.78m). The next highest football clubs on the list of world sports teams are fifth-placed Barcelona (£5.64m) and ninth-placed Manchester City (£5.42m).

In the Premier League, the two Manchester clubs were followed on the list of big spenders by Chelsea (£4.51m), Arsenal (£3.71m), Liverpool (£3.01m) and Tottenham Hotspur (£2.68m).

The lowest wages in the Premier League were at Burnley (£0.95m), Bournemouth (£1.1m), Hull City (£1.22m) and Middlesbrough (£1.22m). They were still higher than the average wages for Scottish champions Celtic (£0.71m).

The findings showed that United have three players in the top 10 of best-paid players in world football. Paul Pogba was fifth (£15.1m per year or £290,000 per week), Wayne Rooney was eighth (£13.5m per year or £260,000 per week) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic was 10th (£13m per year or £250,000 per week).

No other Premier League players were in the top 10 of that list, which included four from La Liga and three from China. The best-paid players were jointly Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona's Lionel Messi, who brought in £18.98m per year or £365,000 per week.

The Premier League, though, pays more than double the average salary of their nearest competitors La Liga (£1,239,295) and Serie A (£1,105,633).

Premier League average pay has multiplied by almost 32 times in 25 seasons, from about £77,000 in 1992-93. United's first-team salaries have risen from about £140,000 per year in the first Premier League year to more than 40 times that amount.

FA await referee's report before acting on Jose Mourinho - source

The FA are awaiting referee Mark Clattenburg's report before deciding on any further steps to take regarding Jose Mourinho's conduct on Saturday, a source confirmed to ESPN FC.

The Manchester United manager will be hoping that he can avoid a stadium ban after being sent to the stands by Clattenburg during Saturday's 0-0 draw against Burnley.

Mourinho had been incensed by the failure to award Matteo Darmian a penalty after he had fallen in the box following a touch from Jon Flanagan.

The Portuguese is already in the dock after a misconduct charge, relating to comments made about referee Anthony Taylor before the 0-0 draw at Liverpool, saying that the official was in a "difficult position."

He has until 6 p.m. on Monday to respond to that charge.

Mourinho's assistant, Rui Faria, added to the narrative from the United camp regarding officials when he spoke after the Burnley game and said that it had been "fantastic work by the referee" to send off Ander Herrera. The Spaniard received a second booking midway through the second half after trying to pull out of a challenge on Dean Marney but slipping.

Herrera told United's official website: "I didn't want to make both of the fouls. I'm not a violent player. First yellow card, I bent my knee and didn't want to kick the opponent. The second, I slipped."

Discussing Mourinho's earlier dismissal, Faria alluded to what will happen this week, saying: "What is important is what the referee will write in his report."

Mourinho had received a stadium ban, suspended for one-year when he was Chelsea's manager last season after complaining to referee Jon Moss at West Ham United, but that expired the day before his remarks on Taylor.

He had received fines by the FA before then, each one bigger than the last, regarding comments on referees -- but they did not deter him from speaking about officiating again.

Jose Mourinho confirms Henrikh Mkhitaryan ready for Burnley

Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has responded to keeping Henrikh Mkhitaryan on the sidelines, but says the midfielder will be just fine.

Speaking ahead of Saturday's visit of Burnley, Mourinho oozed with satisfaction over the players' efforts in the midweek EFL Cup victory over neighbours City and being able to repay the faith back to the fans.

He also described under-used midfielder Michael Carrick as "phenomenal", but the Portuguese coach also explained why Mkhitaryan continued to remain out of the first team, having made the initial 20-man squad against City only to be omitted from the final 18.

"He is not injured," Mourinho said. "Sometimes I confuse the word 'fit' in the English language. Sometimes you can say that it is 'not injured', but you could also say that it is 'in great condition and ready to compete'.

"That is different for me as we use different words in Portuguese for the different situations. Mkhitaryan is not injured, he is training with the team 100 per cent."

Asked if it takes some players longer to adapt to the English game, Mourinho added: "Some players find it very easy whereas others need more time. They need time to feel the intensity, the aggression, the game without the ball and the competitiveness.

"The realities are often different, particularly in terms of the competitiveness. It doesn't matter who you are against, you have to play at the highest level, otherwise you will not be able to do it.

"Mhiki needs time to become the top player he knows he can be. We believe him and, sooner or later, there will be no problem."

After the 4-0 drubbing by Chelsea last weekend, United's 1-0 win over Pep Guardiola's City was a much-needed boost for a team who are already six points behind the top three after only nine games.

It has been a stuttering start for Mourinho and he was asked when fans could expect to see the best from his team.

"I don't know, but what I know is that in the last seven matches we lost one and it is better to lose one match 4-0 than to lose four matches 1-0," the former Chelsea boss added.

"To lose four matches 1-0 - that's 12 points, one match 4-0 is three points, so our last run of results is not bad.

"Performance levels are even better because, for example, we lost two points against Stoke and I think that was our best match by far in the season in terms of the quality of our football.

"It was the dynamic of our football, the creation of opportunities and it could easily be a match to score four, five, six goals so the run of results and performance is not bad.

"But we are a team in the process of building up. You don't do that with one transfer window, you don't do that in three or four months. In this moment we just think about game by game, and now it is Burnley and Burnley is difficult, I know that."