Pep Guardiola breaks silence on Manchester City’s Declan Rice transfer pursuit

Pep Guardiola has admitted Manchester City were desperate to sign Declan Rice from West Ham this summer.

Arsenal signed Rice for a club-record fee of £105million, outbidding City to sign the England international, with Mikel Arteta making him a key part of his side this season as they aim to go one better than last term, when they finished runners-up to the Blues.

City made a bid worth £90million for Rice, but they refused to match Arsenal’s offers for the 24-year-old and he has made an impressive start to his Emirates career.

Asked why City failed to sign one of their key targets during the transfer window ahead of Sunday’s summit meeting with Arsenal, Guardiola said: ‘For sure everybody knows City wanted him, we wanted him. He could play not just when Rodri could not”.

“At the end, Arsenal pushed more and wanted him more, maybe Arteta was more convincing than me, or the club itself, or their offer.

“We believed in that position we could not reach it because we [bought] Josko. We could not afford it. We could afford it maybe less… that’s why.”

The deal to sign Rice was one of a spending spree of more than £200million from Arsenal, who also signed Kai Havertz and Jurrien Timber, as well as a loan with an option to buy deal for goalkeeper David Raya.

City spent a similar sum in their window, bringing in Mateo Kovacic, Matheus Nunes and Jeremy Doku, as well as Gvardiol, but Guardiola believes the two clubs are treated differently when their transfer spending is discussed.

“Normally when Manchester City spend this amount of money it’s crazy, when it’s the other ones how smart they are. That’s quite happened but I’m not denying that everyone can do whatever they want and never judge the other one,” he said.

“We have been judged all the time but it’s fine. When we were in the middle of the table it never happened that, it was not a problem, we were not under scrutiny from the rest.

“The more difficult thing for Arsenal is players leaving, important players in the team that were there when Mikel took over. In that position released the contract they have but at the moment the recruitment is really good.

“They have a young squad for many, many years. The perspective for many is the fact that they will be there many times and, of course, Declan Rice is an exceptional, exceptional holding midfielder with the national team. He is an exceptional player.”