Gerard Pique believes Pep Guardiola is the ideal mentor to develop John Stones into a world-class defender at Manchester City. “The situation with Joe I think I have spoken clearly about in the last two press conferences”.
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“He will make good things happen for us and for the England national team, I’m pretty sure of that”, the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss added. “I like how he plays, it’s a similar style to mine”, Pique told Marca.
“Until August 31, all the players here are my players, and I will work with them like there is no end, so after that we can speak about everything”. Barcelona were the first ones who announced contact with Manchester City but, sorry, the deal is not complete.
With Willy Caballero having so far been preferred to Hart, the arrival of 33-year-old Bravo could effectively relegate Hart to third choice.
“We spoke about football”, said Guardiola who was photographed talking to Hart during training ahead of City’s Champions League qualifying tie with Steaua Bucharest on Wednesday.
And, with Claudio Bravo apparently poised to join City, it has been speculated that Hart may be set to leave the club.
The 22-year-old has drawn comparisons with Pique, victor of three straight LaLiga crowns and two Champions League titles under Guardiola at Camp Nou.
He said: “I am not able to speak (about that) because I do not know what is going on”.
City go into the second leg holding a commanding 5-0 lead over Steaua.
The ruthless decisions to drop Hart and another club linchpin, Yaya Toure, has detracted a little from City’s winning start to the season. I don’t know how many, they all deserve to play and I am so confident about all the players. I don’t know about negotiations.
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“I don’t like to play the game when people say it’s easy and it’s finished”.
