Stefan Borson disagrees with Pep Guardiola over Man City’s spending amid ‘crude’ claim
Manchester City have spent heavily on rebuilding their squad at the Etihad Stadium over the past year.
FIFA’s Global Transfer Report has revealed Man City spent the most money on international transfers across European clubs in 2025.
Meanwhile, Man City signed Antoine Semenyo for £64million from Bournemouth and Marc Guehi in a £20m deal from Crystal Palace in the latest January transfer window.
Speaking in a press conference last week, Pep Guardiola brought up Man City’s net spend over the past five years.
“I am a little bit sad and upset because in net spend the last five years we are seventh in the Premier League,” said the Catalan boss.
“I want to be the first, I don’t understand why the club don’t spend more money. I am a little bit grumpy with them.”
How Man City have balanced out heavy spending
Former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson exclusively told Football Insider Man City have “spent a fortune” when discussing Guardiola’s claims about net spend.
It’s no secret Man City have sold several young players for a profit in recent years, boosting their net-spend figures.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, Borson said: “Well, Pep’s being sarcastic, but net spend is not the way to look at it anyway. I mean, you can argue it every which way, so there’s no question City have spent a fortune.
“I don’t think it’s right to suggest that City haven’t been one of the biggest spenders in the game, and net spend is a pretty crude way of looking at things. Partly because it depends on what your squad looks like when you go into the five-year period and what assets you’ve got to sell on the day just before the five-year period starts.
“Clearly, if you’ve got 15 players that you can ship out on the first day of the five-year period, then of course your net spend is going to look great. Then furthermore with City, the numbers are obviously flattered by youth players that many of which have never played for the first team.
“It’s kind of irrelevant whether City’s academy happened to have let’s say £100m of quality that you could sell, so I don’t really buy the argument that this is just a net-spend discussion.”
Why Pep Guardiola should ignore talk around Man City’s spending
Borson insisted Guardiola shouldn’t pay attention to what people are saying about Man City’s spending over the years.
“I think City and Pep should be unbothered by people talking about spend, gross spend, net spend, whatever,” said Borson.
“If you were to look at all of the teams at the top of the table, they’ve all spent very heavily over the last few years, all within a relatively close level.
“There are four or five of them that are approaching £1billion of spend over the last few years, and it’s just one of those things really.
“You’ve got to look at wage bills, you’ve got to look at gross spend, you’ve got to look at what your overall return is for that spend.”
Man City have won 18 trophies since Guardiola arrived at the Etihad in 2016, while he is looking to add to that total this season.
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