Pep Guardiola warns Man City may have to break January transfer window rule
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Pep Guardiola claims Manchester City may have to rip up their usual rule of not doing business in January as their injury woes continue. The New Year presents a chance for clubs to go hunting for new recruits and the crisis at the Etihad, which has seen them win just one of their last 11 games, means that the champions may have to bring in new faces if they want to save their season.
January can often result in inflated prices and Guardiola and City have looked to avoid recruiting during the mid-season window. Aymeric Laporte, then a club-record buy, is the only player they've pursued in January, proving that successes can be found.
Despite usually focusing on the football - not the transfers - in the first month of the year Guardiola admits they may change their approach with Rodri a long-term absentee and their defence broken up by constant injuries. The City boss said: "Teams don’t sell, maybe it has to be players who don’t play. They don’t want to sell and they are so expensive. It depends on the market and we’ll see. It’s simple: get players back. Except Rodri. We have the squad there and after that maybe we’ll have the team that we were. We were not able to solve it.
"We’ve spoken about doing something and if it’s in winter it’s if we can really we need it or if we can really find something. Not for just four or five months. In the winter it is more difficult to do. We’ll see. "I don’t know how many times we’ve got into the winter (market) – maybe just Aymeric Laporte seven years ago. We’re not a big fan of that but the circumstances of this season have been special.
