The long drawn saga took a turn for the worse last night after the midfielder’s agent lashed out yet another outburst on the Manchester City manager
Yaya Toure’s agent Dimitri Seluk and manager Pep Guardiola never really enjoyed a good relationship, sharing a history dating back to the days when the Catalan was the manager of Barcelona.
Before Pep Guardiola’s arrival as the coach of the Spanish giants, Yaya Toure was one of the undisputed starters for the club in the middle of the park. However, after a successful first year, the situation soon began to change for the Ivorian, with Pep preferring to utilize La Masia graduate Sergio Busquets, then aged 21, over Yaya Toure in 2009/10 season.
Unhappy over how things were panning out for him at the club, Yaya eventually joined English club Manchester City in the following summer for a £24 million transfer fee.
This led to a strain in relations between Dimitri Seluk and Pep Guardiola, with the former heavily criticizing the then Barcelona head coach for pushing out his client from the club agaisnt his wishes. Their relationship has only turned out to become more sour with time.
When Pep Guardiola was announced as the Manchester City manager, many predicted for Yaya Toure to suffer the same fate as he did at Barcelona, only for Pep to quash the murmurs in pre-season by stating the colossal midfielder was very much part of his plans for the upcoming season.
As it turned out, Pep dropped Yaya Toure from Manchester City’s Champions League squad, citing his lack of intensity off the ball as the reason behind the decision. Naturally, it attracted a strong outburst from his agent Seluk, who stated the manager was trying to humiliate the player. There was also a lot of personal insults dished to Guardiola by the agent.
Pep Guardiola responded by freezing Yaya Toure from the team, stating the player won’t appear for the club again unless an apology was issued by Dimitri Seluk to the club and the player for his unkind words.
The situation has been more or less the same, if not worse, ever since. This hasn’t stopped Seluk from continuing his war words, claiming to Sunday Mirror he won’t be offering any apologies to anyone.
The agent went on to add Pep betrays his own players and is humiliating Yaya as a revenge for Seluk’s criticism of Pep when Yaya was forced out of Barcelona.
“Pep is allowing his ego to make decisions that aren’t in the best interests of Manchester City. This is his revenge. And it is personal, not professional. He’s turning Sheikh Mansour and the fans against Yaya.”
Amidst all this mud-slinging, Yaya Toure’s reputation for one has taken a serious beating; considered as one of Manchester City’s greatest ever players. The situation doesn’t reflect positively for anyone concerned, and the player must be hoping to end the misery as soon as possible.
It is clear, Yaya’s career at Manchester City is close to an end, and shouldn’t come as a surprise if the player moves out of the club as soon as this January window.
With the midfielder’s contract set to end in 2017, the player will be eligible to sign pre-contract with the clubs in January. His agent has previously expressed Yaya’s desire to stay in England, with Arsenal and Manchester United said to be among the potential suitors. There are also interest from the Chinese clubs, who can tempt the Ivorian with a bumper offer.
At the age of 33, he’s past his peak age and no longer possesses the athleticism he did in his younger days, but he continues to be a fine player on his day, someone who could change the course of the game within seconds. His footballing brain and technical abilities means there should no shortage of interest for the player.
It will be interesting to see where Yaya Toure eventually ends up, but it’s definitely disappointing to see how his career at Manchester City has come to a such a farce ending.
