PEP GUARDIOLA made a strong and surprising defence of old sparring partner Jose Mourinho.
Some critics have suggested the Special One is past his sell-by date having struggled in the past few years.
Guardiola and Mourinho enjoy a more cordial relationship today than in years gone byCredit: AFP or licensors
His Manchester United reign ended disastrously and Mourinho’s first few months at Tottenham have not produced the bounce Daniel Levy hoped for.
Yet he found an unlikely ally in Sunday’s opponent Guardiola — even though the pair were fierce rivals during their time managing in Spain.
Manchester City chief Pep claims the Portuguese should be judged on what he has done throughout his career, rather than the past few months and years.
Ahead of their North London clash, Guardiola said: “The value of Jose, a manager with a lot of experience and a lot of success, is not to be judged on one season, or 1½ seasons.
“The guys who don’t judge his career on 15 or 20 years, it’s because people don’t understand anything. I know we get judged for the last game, the ideas we have or something we do.
“But I try to judge my colleagues not on one season, but over ten or 15 years, a long career. That gives more value.
“Periods for managers are up and down — everyone has it. You have seasons with good and bad periods.
“For some 15 or 20 years, Jose has been there all the time and that must be respected.
“But when you win a lot of titles and then the moment you don’t people think, ‘Ah it’s not good’.”
When Pep was in charge of Barcelona and Mourinho managed Real Madrid, the pair had some memorable clashes.
Yet that epic rivalry never really resurfaced when Mourinho was United chief and trying to knock City off their perch, and the pair lived just around the corner from each other.
Guardiola smiled: “I’m sorry for you. I know you were looking forward to it but, I’m sorry, maybe we are older and more experienced.
“Every time we played United when he was there, people were never talking about how we were going to play or how he was going to play, who was going to win.
“It was just about my press conference, did I say something or did he say something.
“But I’m sorry, I told you, it didn’t happen.”
Meanwhile Guardiola revealed City’s offer of a new deal for winger Leroy Sane remains on the table.
Reports in Germany suggest the winger, 24, is having second thoughts about a move to Bayern Munich, which has been on the cards for the past year.
The Etihad chief would love him to stay, but admitted: “I don’t have any new news, I’m sorry.
“I would like to tell you but…. you just have to ask Txiki Begiristain.
“The last information I had was that we made him an offer a long time ago and he didn’t reject it. So after that I don’t have any news.”
Sane returned to first-team training this week after missing the whole of this season with a cruciate knee problem.
The German will now need a couple of weeks to get his fitness back up — meaning the game after City’s winter break will be in his sights.
Pep said: “Sane started to train with us, good news, and he moves surprisingly really well. It was nice to see him back.”
Jose Mourinho has great fun interviewing himself about transfers at Tottenham press conference
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
