Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, has said that they could not complete a deal to buy Riyad Mahrez from Leicester City, because he was too expensive.
The Premier League leaders walked away from negotiations on transfer deadline day, after Leicester demanded £95million for the Algeria star.
City’s final offer was a package totalling £65m and they refused to go higher.
“I admire the club for having parameters. Maybe in the future we can buy players for £100m but it will be for a special player and at the moment we cannot afford it.
“When a player doesn’t come it’s because it’s not possible. I understand completely. We make an offer and the clubs and the managers want more. Sometimes the deal is done, sometimes not. It’s not a problem, believe me.
“People say that only we have money. We are not the richest club in the world. We have passion, always have amazing workers, a club with an amazing structure.
“It’s at that level of Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and an amazing CEO (Ferran Soriano) who sees the level and what we can do in the future.
“I say that because I follow the club. We bought a lot of players, not just one, two or three. If you want to play this way, I’m not a magician.
“I have good players, amazing players. The club has provided me with them. To compete, you need good players, and they are so expensive. We have a level and we cannot go above it.
“All the players we bought, it was £40m, £50m, £55m. It’s a lot of money but the big difference is that we need to buy a lot,” Guardiola explained.
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