Pep Guardiola has said he hopes Lionel Messi will finish his career at Barcelona amid suggestions Manchester City want to sign the Argentinian on a free transfer in the summer.
Messi’s future has been questioned this week after he criticised Eric Abidal following the sporting director’s claim the squad’s form was behind Ernesto Valverde’s sacking as head coach in January. The 32-year-old told Abidal “to name names” and the fallout caused speculation that Messi may leave Barça in the summer.
Guardiola, who managed Messi at Barcelona, was asked on Friday if he might be a target for City. “He is a player from Barcelona and he will stay there, that’s my wish for him to stay there,” he said. “I’m not going to talk about players playing for other clubs. I think he will finish his career there, that’s my wish.”
As for the forwards he has in his squad, the manager said Raheem Sterling’s hamstring injury is a “problem” and may cause him to miss the Champions League last-16 tie with Real Madrid. The first leg is on 26 February.
“It’s a hamstring injury and we will see, of course it takes weeks but we’ll see before Leicester [in a fortnight], Madrid and the rest of the games. I don’t know right now,” he said. “It’s a problem, but it’s a problem we had with [Ilkay] Gündogan out for six months in the first year [2016-17], and [Aymeric] Laporte this season for four or five months. It’s always a problem. But it is what it is. During the season these kind of things happen unfortunately.”
City, who play West Ham on Sunday, are 22 points behind the Premier League leaders, Liverpool, but Guardiola pointed to how City won the title by 25 points three years ago.
“One year ago they said we were unstoppable for four or five years,” said Guardiola. “Then after two seasons of incredible success [it changes]. I don’t know what’ll happen in the future, we’ll prepare as best we can and try to reduce the gap.
“When we had 100 points they were 25 points behind, then one point [last season] and now look at them. But there are other teams too [who can contend].”
City have scored 105 goals in all competitions yet failed to score in their last two matches – a 1-0 loss to Manchester United and Sunday’s 2-0 defeat at Tottenham.
Guardiola said: “I don’t know why – I would like to find the explanation. I don’t have any [reason] to say there was something wrong with my players. I know they want to score goals and score the penalties. Honestly, we concede few against the big clubs and create a lot. We miss a lot of chances. They [the opponents] arrive once or twice and score – we have to improve on that. We can do more. Putting the ball in the net is the most difficult thing in football and we are going to try to improve.”
Leroy Sané’s recovery from a serious knee injury, meanwhile, may take “weeks” despite him now training with the squad.
“When you have an injury, especially this one for six months, you need to recover tempo and rhythm,” said Guardiola. “He needs time, it’s not a case of him training and he will then immediately be there, it’s not like an ankle or muscular injury. He needs weeks. What’s important is that the surgery was perfect and he’s recovering incredibly well, he’ll come back stronger than before but now he needs a little bit of time.”