Pep Guardiola says he cannot recall telling anybody he believes Roberto De Zerbi will succeed him as Manchester City manager.
A story has emerged claiming the Catalan privately tipped the Brighton boss to succeed him after City drew at the Amex Stadium in May.
Yet, while Guardiola may have cast doubt over whether that occurred, he has repeatedly been effusive in his praise of the Italian and remains so ahead of Saturday’s meeting between their two clubs.
Guardiola, whose future beyond the expiry of his contract in 2025 is unclear, said: “I don’t remember that.
“Maybe I have bad memory but I’m sure Roberto can train in any team around the world. I don’t have any doubt.
“I don’t remember saying that to the players. I remember saying before he arrived, one or two games in, about sustaining the manager, but I don’t remember saying that honestly.
“It’s none of my business. If the chairman asks my opinion I will give my opinion but it’s none of my business.
“I’m not the sporting director. It’s not my responsibility to say what’s going right or wrong.”
Former Sassuolo and Shakhtar Donetsk boss De Zerbi has made a big impression since taking over at Brighton just over a year ago.
He guided the club into European competition for the first time with a sixth-placed finish in the Premier League last season and they have started the current campaign strongly.
Guardiola feels this proves a manager need not have had experience at the highest level to land the biggest jobs.
He said: “It doesn’t mean you have to be at the top clubs to be manager of the top clubs. I was appointed Barcelona first-team (manager) coming from the fourth division with no experience at the top level.
“You have the idea of the club, the sporting director follows the idea, they hire the manager for this idea, they hire players to follow the idea. When that happens it’s going well.
“Man City have done this, Liverpool with Jurgen (Klopp) for many years – winning titles with the same process and same ideas.”
Guardiola, 52, is widely considered the greatest coach of his generation having last year added a third Champions League title to a glittering CV that also includes five Premier League wins.
Yet even he feels like he can learn from a relative youngster like 44-year-old De Zerbi.
He said: “His players are always in the perfect body-shape position to get the ball.
“It’s a stupid thing to say but one of the key points. Everyone moves in the right moment, tempo.
“Football is not ‘you have to move’, it’s when. It’s body shape in the perfect shape. It’s really good.
“Everything he does makes sense and I learn.”
Verona 0-5 Inter: Five-star visitors go top of Serie A
Inter hammered lowly Verona 5-0 away from home on Saturday to move top of the Serie A table, with all five goals coming in the first half.
The hosts could easily have taken the lead through Casper Tengstedt just six minutes in as he struck the post after causing chaos in the box, but Inter sparked to life after that.
Joaquin Correa rattled the crossbar moments later, and then opened the scoring after 17 minutes, finishing off a lovely team move by chipping Lorenzo Montipo.
Having set up the opener, Marcus Thuram added a quick-fire double; twice in three minutes, he took the goalkeeper out of the game with clever play before picking out the back of the net.
Substitute Stefan de Vrij fired their fourth past Montipo before Yann Bisseck managed to pick out the top corner despite initially tripping over the ball in the 41st minute.
The second half was a subdued affair, though Correa almost scored another, but instead smacked the crossbar for a second time.
Inter leapfrogged Napoli, who do not play until Sunday, as they moved into first with 28 points. Verona are 14th on 12 points.
Data Debrief: Full-throttle first half
It was a pretty much perfect first half from Simone Inzaghi's side, and it gave the manager a chance to rest some key players with a Champions League tie ahead of them in midweek.
Inter scored five goals in the first half of an away league game for only the second time in their history in Serie A - after the 5-1 score against Sampdoria in the first 45 minutes of play back in March 1964.
The visitors scored with all five of their shots on target in the first period and outperformed their 2.79 expected goals (xG) by some margin.
Correa has scored in a Serie A game 756 days after his last goal in the top-flight, on 29th October 2022, against Sampdoria, at Meazza. Meanwhile, all three of his away goals have come against Verona at Bentegodi.
Chelsea not focused on Liverpool and Man City, insists Jackson after Leicester win
Chelsea are not getting carried away by talk of a title challenge following their 2-1 win over Leicester City, according to striker Nicolas Jackson.
Jackson netted his seventh Premier League goal of the season and was joined on the scoresheet by Enzo Fernandez on Saturday, as Enzo Maresca got one over on his former club at the King Power Stadium.
The result lifted the Blues to 22 points in third, just one adrift of champions Manchester City in second and six behind leaders Liverpool.
Speaking to TNT Sports after the game, Jackson said: "We know the months of November and December have a lot of games, so we just try to recover for the next one and go again.
"I saw the danger, then the ball came to Enzo, he gave it to me and he finished. I'm just working in every game to try to help the team win."
Asked if Chelsea were now thinking of themselves as title challengers, he added: "No, we don't look at the teams in front of us, we just try to win every game."
Five of Jackson's goals this season have come on the road, the most of any player in the Premier League.
Since the start of May, only Erling Haaland (18) has bettered Jackson's 11 goals in the competition overall.
Leicester got a stoppage-time consolation through Jordan Ayew's penalty, though they earlier felt aggrieved not to be awarded a spot-kick when Stephy Mavididi was seemingly felled by Wesley Fofana in the 85th minute.
Boss Steve Cooper lamented that call, saying: "We've had some terrible luck with this referee. That continued today.
"There's also the game to talk about. Tough first half in terms of Chelsea territory and dominance with the ball. We gave away a poor goal. It should have been 0-0.
"Defensively we were generally okay. We need to be showing courage and belief. If we do that we can create chances and be a threat.
"The big moment is the first penalty not given, it's clear what happened there. The second one was offside [before VAR] and you see how onside he was.
"That was the story of the officials' game. You can speak to them after 30 minutes. I'm not sure if I will or won't."
'It's an honour' - Flick delighted by Messi's Barcelona praise
Hansi Flick says it is an "honour" to hear Lionel Messi praise Barcelona's start to the season.
Flick took over as Barcelona head coach in May, with the club making an impressive start to LaLiga, as they sit top on 33 points after 13 matches.
They have won 11 of their games, losing the other two, while they are sixth in the Champions League table, just three points behind leaders Liverpool.
Messi, who spent 17 years at Barcelona before leaving to join Paris Saint-Germain in 2021, recently described Flick's team as "spectacular", in particular lauding his use of young players in the team.
The German has not shied away from using academy players during his time at Barcelona so far, with Lamine Yamal the standout of the bunch after he carried last season's form into this campaign.
Yamal is the only player across Europe's big five leagues to complete 25+ dribbles (34), create 25+ chances (26), have 25+ shots (39), score 5+ goals (five) and provide 5+ assists (seven).
When asked how he felt about Messi's comments, Flick was delighted.
"It's an honour to hear the best player in history say that he likes this Barca," he told reporters.
"He follows the team closely, he has his heart set on this club, that means a lot to the youngsters and to the team."
Barcelona return to LaLiga action when they travel to Celta Vigo on Saturday, looking to extend their lead at the top of the league.
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