Guardiola resigned to Real Madrid's designs on City star
The Manchester City coach admitted that it will be difficult to hang on to academy prospect Brahim Díaz if the European Champions come calling.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has admitted that in the current transfer market there is little guarantee that any club can hold on to their young talent.
Speaking in a press conference ahead of the game against Watford at the weekend, Guardiola stated that it is essentially up to players where there future lies after the transfers during this summer’s window of Kylian Mbappé from Monaco to PSG and Ousmane Dembélé’s switch from Dortmund to Barcelona.
Concretely, Guardiola referred to rising City star and Spain under-21 international Brahim Díaz, who is attracting the interest of several of Europe’s biggest clubs, among them Real Madrid.
Guardiola: "The market is the market. You can't control it"
“We want Brahim. But the market is the market and you can’t control it. It depends on what he wants. I’m not a coach who gets involved in these sort of matters. We have Ferran [Soriano] and Txiki [Begiristain] for that.”
Guardiola lost one of his academy stars during the summer when highly rated 17-year-old Jadon Sancho moved to Borussia Dortmund.
“We tried absolutely everything, but I think it was not the salary. Maybe he thought he would get more minutes at Dortmund and I can understand that,” Guardiola said. They have to know -- he has to know, the family has to know and especially the managers [Sancho's advisors] have to know -- we had a lot of confidence in him.
We put a lot of effort in, like we did with [Phil] Foden and Brahim and other guys to help them to grow up from here. But at the end, when they don't want to stay, there is nothing to say."