Pep holding keys to City’s renovation

Blues wasting no time in strengthening their squad

- By SIMON BAJKOWSKI

IT hasn't taken long for the takes about Pep Guardiola the chequebook manager to come out.

Manchester City spent hundreds of millions of pounds in January and are set to again this summer.

They can, of course, because their net spend has been one of the best in the Premier League for years and they will continue to generate large sums in sales.

After seeing enormous benefits from a golden generation of players signed in the Guardiola years that haven't needed replacing for so long, here comes a rebuild that has been needed for some time.

And so it was decided in January, against the best wishes of the manager and the hierarchy, that more bodies were needed immediately.

They would stick to their principles of buying players for the future, but they could not ignore the fact that some readiness was required to get the club through an unprecedented injury crisis.