Mourinho aims jibe at City
When Lionel Messi announced he was leaving Barcelona, the rumour mill went into overdrive.
With his exorbitant salary ruling him out of moving to all but a few clubs, and with his former manager Pep Guardiola at one of them, City were understood to be the favourites to sign him.
In the end, Messi's contract at Barcelona put a stop to him leaving this summer, and Guardiola's old adversary Jose Mourinho has aimed a not-so-subtle jibe at City over their aspirations to take Messi to the Etihad.
"We respect Financial Fair Play at Tottenham," Spurs manager Mourinho said. "He can only go to a team that doesn't respect Financial Fair Play, so it's not Tottenham, for sure."
Under-23s helped City beat Real Madrid
When City were preparing to face Real Madrid in the second leg of their Champions League last-16 tie, Guardiola was determined to keep things in-house.
And so City’s under-23 side were asked to mimic Zinedine Zidane’s team for training purposes.
"We were Real Madrid so we did a great job!" explained Under-23s assistant coach Danny Walker as he discussed the build-up to City's game against Real Madrid in the Champions League last-16 second leg.
"Taking aside training our boys, just to go next to the pitch and watch Pep work...he's the best coach in the world so just to see him work and how he puts his ideas across, how he is with the players. The players in the first team environment are the very best in the world so the way that he gets his ideas across and the way that they buy into it.
"He's very intense so for me as a young English coach it's very good to watch that and try to not copy him but take some bits that can help me dealing with Under-23 players."
