Pep Guardiola threatens to QUIT Man City if bosses refuse request

Manchester City boss has threatened to quit the club if they do not reduce the size of his squad this summer as he does not want to have to leave players out of his matchday squads next season.

Rico Lewis, Savinho, Abdukodir Khusanov, James McAtee and Claudio Echeverri were all absent from the squad as beat 3-1 in their final home game of the season and Guardiola has admitted he hates leaving out fit players.

"I said to the club I don't want that [a bigger squad]," Guardiola said. "I don't want to leave five or six players in the freezer. I don't want that. I will quit. Make a shorter squad, I will stay.

"It's impossible for my soul to [tell] my players in the tribune [stands] that they cannot play. Maybe [for] three, four months we couldn't select 11 players, we didn't have defenders, it was so difficult. After, people came back, but next season it cannot be like that.

"As a manager I cannot train 24 players and every time I select I have to have four, five, six stay in Manchester at home because they cannot play. This is not going to happen. I said to the club, I don't want that."

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Kevin De Bruyne will leave City when his contract expires at the end of the season, but he is the only confirmed exit so far. And when asked if more players will inevitably leave the club this summer, Guardiola replied: "It is a question for the club.

"I don't want to have 24, 25, 26 players when everyone is fit. If I have injuries, unlucky, we have some players for the academy and we do it. [We] cannot sustain for the emotion of the club, the soul of the team, [to] create another connection with each other that this season we lost it a bit."

is among the players who could be sold, having fallen down the pecking order at the Etihad. Grealish has made just seven starts so far this season and has been linked with an exit.

When asked about the 29-year-old's future, Guardiola said: "We didn't talk, I didn't talk with him. People don't believe me, but these things belong to the agents and the club and Txiki [Begiristain], and in this case Hugo [Viana] as well.

"Both will decide. What is going to happen will happen, but he has to come back to start to play minutes again. It's not only Jack. There is not one player in my locker room, and I think all the locker rooms around the , that is happy when they do not play.

"When the team is winning and winning, they have to figure out how everything happens - but they are not happy. They are here to play and, when they don't play, they are not satisfied. That is the normal position in all the clubs."

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