Pep Guardiola: We wanted Harry Maguire but didn’t sign him because we want to pay a fair price for the player

From today’s perspective, Pep Guardiola’s words about Harry Maguire seem laughable. However, at the time when the English stopper moved to Manchester United for a record sum, he was indeed in demand by many top clubs.

It’s 2019 and Harry Maguire has had quite a successful season at Leicester, in which he played 32 games and scored 3 important goals. Moreover, he has been a cornerstone of the England national team.

Many clubs were interested in Maguire, but eventually Manchester United acquired him for 87 million euros. Considering the fact that he transferred to Leicester two years earlier for less than 14 million euros, it was a big financial injection for the Foxes.

Years later, Guardiola also spoke about this time, admitting that he wanted to bring the now 30-year-old midfielder to the Etihad Stadium as well, only he was too expensive for them.

“We wanted Harry Maguire, but we didn’t sign him because we didn’t want to pay the required amount. We also wanted Cucurella or Alexis Sánchez. We want to pay a fair amount for players,” the Spanish coach told a press conference.

After several years, it must be heartbreaking for Guardiola that he did not bring in the English defender. On the other hand, it is questionable whether Maguire would not have performed at least as well at Manchester City as he has in the Albion national jersey.

The Sheffield native was headed to West Ham this summer, but at least for now, the whole transfer has fallen through and Maguire is quite likely to spend another season at Old Trafford.

He has signed a very lucrative contract with Manchester United until 2025, so there is no rush. Moreover, Erik ten Hag let it be known in the press conference that he is happy to stay in the team.

Happy, however, are not the fans who made their indignation clear after the collapse of the Hammers deal. Hopefully Harry will convince them this season that he really is a good defender. He worked hard on himself over the summer, so we’ll see if it was for anything.

Source: Fabrizio Romano, Transfermarkt