Fernandinho Announce Manchester City exit in the summer
Fernandinho Announce Manchester City exit in the summer catching his manager Pep Guardiola unaware.
Pep Guardiola was taken aback when Fernandinho said he will quit Manchester City in the summer. When asked about the midfielder’s exit, Guardiola said he had no idea.
The Brazilian will leave the Premier League champions next month after a nine-year stint because he wants to return to his homeland and play more regularly.
Fernandinho has only made 11 appearances this season, four of which have come since the beginning of the season, and the 36-year-old is unlikely to start the Champions League quarter-final second leg against Atlético Madrid on Wednesday.
Fernandinho, asked whether he would like to stay another year at City, said: “I don’t think so. Yes, I want to play more; I will go back to Brazil. I decided with my family, which is the most important thing for me. And some people in the club know it.”
Yet one of those was not Guardiola. “I didn’t know it,” the manager said. “You gave me the news. We will see what will happen at the end of the season. I said many times we will see what happens.”
When asked again, Guardiola said: “I said at the end of the season we will talk – maybe it is a family decision, maybe he wants more minutes. I would love to be with him.”
Guardiola suggested that City’s sporting director, may have known but insisted that Fernandinho revealing his future this way was nothing underhand.
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“Maybe Txiki knows it and didn’t tell me,” Guardiola said. “I don’t know. It is a surprise for me; I will say to him [Txiki]: ‘What happened?’ But I know his [Fernandinho’s] intentions. Another player would do it for his benefit. Knowing Ferna, it will not be this.”
Guardiola can comprehend his reasoning for departing. “Absolutely. I want the happiness of my players and absolutely we are going to play tomorrow for him and give him the best farewell moment, reaching again the semi‑final of the Champions League and try to go through again.
“I understand the players want to play, it is completely understandable. Not just because he is 35 or 36. Look what happened with Ferran Torres: he wanted to play so joined Barcelona. I understand Ferna wants go back to Brazil, with his father and mother there, and I am pretty sure the club is going to help him do what he wants.”
Fernandinho later tweeted: “I was 100% honest and spontaneous in answering that question at today’s press conference. But anyone who knows me also knows that my greatest honesty is with Man City and my duties as team captain.”
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