Pep Guardiola has provided a withering response to Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s suggestion that the Manchester City supervisor’s ‘ego’ may forestall him from getting one of the best out of star striker Erling Haaland.
Ibrahimovic, who famously didn’t get together with Guardiola in the course of the pair’s single season collectively at Barcelona greater than a decade in the past, expressed his admiration for Haaland in a current interview however questioned the supervisor’s means to enhance the 22-year-old Norwegian.
Ibrahimovic stated: “It depends on Guardiola’s ego, whether he lets him become bigger than he is or not. Why didn’t he allow me to improve? Because it didn’t just happen to me, but to many others.”
Speaking to reporters forward of City’s weekend conflict with Fulham, Guardiola didn’t try to cover his contempt when requested for his ideas on Ibrahimovic’s feedback.
“He is correct, he’s utterly proper,” Guardiola sarcastically told reporters. “In this membership, on this crew, my ego is past each different individual, each participant.
“I don’t prefer it when Erling scores three objectives, and all of the spotlight is for him. I’m so jealous! Honestly, so jealous! I stated ‘Erling, please no more goals, otherwise the newspapers won’t speak about me, and nearly me’. He is correct, he is aware of me completely. He can write one other e book.”
The ‘book’ remark is most likely a reference to Ibrahimovic’s autobiography, in which he heavily criticised Guardiola for his treatment of the Swede at Barcelona.
Ibrahimovic described Guardiola’s handling of him as being akin to buying a Ferrari and treating it like a Fiat, perhaps due to sharing the limelight with the likes of Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta at Camp Nou.