Almost exactly a month ago, Manchester City played their final home game of the 2017/18 season, the league title already in the bag, and winning comprehensively once again to leave them teetering on breaking the unprecedented 100 point target, which they would nudge past just a week later.
The game had extra resonance however, as it marked the last time the Citizens could show their appreciation for one of the greatest midfielders the Premier League has seen, and a true symbol of the resurgent City and their conquest of the English top division since being taken over by the Abu Dhabi group.
A player with 315 caps for the club, scorer of 82 goals and winner of three Premier League titles, an FA Cup and three League Cups; a haul no one in Manchester could have expected even a mere ten years ago.
Yaya Toure was granted his first start of the season, and furthermore awarded the captain’s armband as he led out Manchester City against Brighton, and a guard-of-honour upon leaving.
A mosaic was unveiled outside of the ground to immortalise the Ivorian who brought with him the success City desired since arriving from Barcelona in 2010, and an academy training pitch named after him.
His brother and former teammate Kolo came out onto the pitch after full-time, and his manager, some would argue the greatest manager, Pep Guardiola, looked on from the touchlines, clapping along with the rest of the Blue fans who packed into the Etihad that Wednesday evening.
Yaya Toure seemed, for once, overwhelmed, and articulated his gratitude.
Everything looked rosy, sweet, the perfect way to send off ‘Uncle Yaya’, with sentimentality and gratitude dripping from the carefully-mown grass to Row Z.
Brought in by Roberto Mancini, a consistent performer under Manuel Pellegrini with whom he achieved his best ever season in 2013, Yaya Toure seemed to know his time was up with the arrival of Guardiola- the manager who sanctioned his sale from Barcelona in 2010.
The two however maintained an amicable outward appearance up until the farewell post-Brighton game.
Fast forward to Tuesday 5th June 2018 and the same Yaya Toure has given access to a French football magazine scathingly denouncing his last manager in Manchester.
Guardiola has won three back-to-back La Liga and Bundesliga titles, two Champions Leagues, two German cups and Copa del Reys, and now, in 2018, a League Cup and a coveted Premier League title.
Now, in an interview with France Football, Toure sets out to ‘break the Guardiola myth’.
- Trophies: 6
- Games: 315
- Goals: 82
Yaya Toure is a modern day Premier League legend
( ✍️ @RogerDismal)
Although technically still under contract at Manchester City until the end of the month, Toure has no qualms about presenting an incident when 'in the dressing room and in front of everyone else, the coach says to me, despite the fact that I was vice-captain several months prior: “I do not feel like you are motivated anymore. If you do not want to stay, go see the owners and sort it out with them.”'
Toure admonishes the ‘disrespect’ he was subject to; ‘I feel like that Pep, without respect, did everything to ruin my final season.”
Adhering to Yaya Toure’s outspoken reputation, the four-time African player of the year goes on to proclaim his misgivings with the Spanish manager, even so far as to suggest that it may have been down to the Ivorian’s ethnicity as to why their relationship was so problematic, 'I even came to the point of asking myself if it was because of the colour of my skin.'
This altogether doesn’t ring completely true from the perspective of the outsider, with the Algerian Riyad Mahrez about to become Manchester City’s most expensive signing of all time from Leicester.
Nevertheless, Toure has no qualms about suggesting that Guardiola 'insists he has no problems with black players, because he is too intelligent to be caught out…but when you realise that he has problems with Africans, wherever he goes, I ask myself questions. He will never admit it. But the day he will line up a team in which we find five Africans, not naturalised, I promise I will send him a cake.'
No one can truly doubt Guardiola’s capacity as a manager. But once again on the back of an record-breaking season, and though it may be all part-and-parcel of the universal recognition and pedestal placing granted, the Spanish manager has once again had to suffer an attack by a former player.
Despite the multitude of plaudits Guardiola has deservedly received since his inaugural treble-winning season as a manager at Barcelona in 2008/09, this is not the first time he has had to weather criticism by a player or a colleague formerly under his stewardship.
As Toure himself states within the interview, he is 'not the first to speak about differences in treatment.'
The great Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto’o who played under Guardiola at Barcelona for just one season expressed his disdain at Guardiola’s lack of courage “to tell me things to my face” in a previous interview with beIN Sports.
Bayern Munich and Germany doctor Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt criticised Guardiola this year in his recently-released autobiography, stating that ‘Guardiola didn't have any trust in me and my team…on the one hand, he showed no interest in medical questions, and on the other hand, he demanded miracles from us', and complained about Guardiola’s ‘accusatory and aggressive tone’.
Similary to Toure, Muller-Wohlfhahrt takes issue with the Spaniard’s portrayal in the media as an innovator or a ‘revolutionary’, but went on to say at Bayern ‘he really turned back the clock’.
Most devastatingly, the German unabashedly was of the opinion that 'Guardiola is someone with weak self-confidence, who will do anything to disguise that from people. That's why he seems to live in constant fear, not so much of defeat, but of losing power or authority.'
Chiming somewhat with what Toure has had to say, the former Bayern Munich defender, the Brazilian Dante has gone on record in stating that Guardiola ‘isn’t good on a human level’, whilst Cesc Fabregas commented on the confusion he had to suffer in quickly adapting to Guardiola’s demands and desire of style of play after his move from Arsenal to the Nou Camp.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is perhaps his most infamous critic, ridiculing Guardiola’s ‘philosopher thing’ and ‘advanced bullsh*t about blood, sweat and tears”, comparing him unfavourably to Jose Mourinho and labelling him 'a spineless coward'.
Memorably, the notorious wallflower that the Swedish forward is, went on to say in his autobiography, I Am Zlatan, that after Guardiola signed him from Inter Milan, the then Barcelona-manger had bought a Ferrari but went on to drive him like a Fiat;
'As a coach, he was fantastic. As a person, I've no comments about that, that's something else. He's not a man, there's nothing more to say.'
Bojan and Alexander Hleb, both of whom Guardiola coached at Barcelona, were similarly accusatory, and Thomas Mueller who, despite winning three consecutive Bundesliga titles under the Spaniard at Bayern Munich, was left dismayed about being excluded from the starting team to play Atletico Madrid in the 2016 Champions League, leaving him to say that Guardiola was 'in his own world'. This omission was further criticised by Bayern teammate Frank Ribery, who most audaciously proclaimed Guardiola’s ‘lack of experience’ and his avoidance of ‘face-to-face encounters’.
The eventual 1-0 loss in the semi-final would be detrimental in leading Bayern out of the Champions League in the last four for the third consecutive season.
What is clear is that Guardiola demands and certainly gets the majority of results he desires, recent European success notwithstanding. He is by far the most successful manager since the start of the century, achieving success in Spain, Germany, and now England. His response will be measured by the excellent football he brings to the pitch, and the trophies he guarantees the clubs he decides to take charge of. His ruthlessness brings him plaudits and criticism from the people who is deemed to have slighted on course.
There are however clear expressions of disdain from certain characters within the game, and ultimately, now following Yaya Toure’s comments, it is unfortunate that many a devoted Manchester City fan may be torn between their adoration of their current hero, and the one that marked the start of their dreams becoming reality.
