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TalkSPORT pundit suggests Man City sold £42.5m player due to behind-the-scenes ‘clash’ with Pep Guardiola 

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Pep Guardiola has coached a wide range of players during his time as Manchester City’s manager.

Specifically, Pep Guardiola has used 90 players in total throughout his reign at the Etihad Stadium whilst coaching numerous others.

In his spells in charge of Barcelona and Bayern Munich before joining City, he used a combined total of 101 players which included the likes of Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Arjen Robben among others.

As well as taking charge of 483 matches with the Blues, the Catalan has seen multiple players make moves in and out of the club for a variety of reasons.

Now though, a pundit and former City player has made a claim about why one particular figure brought an end to his time at the Manchester club, with Guardiola apparently playing a big role in the matter.

Chelsea FC v Manchester City FC - Premier League
Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images

Danny Mills claims Cole Palmer left Man City after ‘clash’ with Pep Guardiola

After seeing Cole Palmer named England’s Men’s Player of the Year, Danny Mills said this in a recent video shared on the talkSPORT YouTube channel about the player’s exit from City.

He said: “The problem that I think he had at Manchester City, Pep likes to play in a certain way and Pep doesn’t really like those sort of freedom-esque players, which is why he had to reign Jack Grealish in an awful lot and he changed his game almost completely from what Jack was.

[He was] amazing and [that’s] why he got that move, he then became a completely different player.

“I don’t think Cole Palmer was willing to do that and was willing to change and become a player that’s going to sit in that position and work back and do as he told.

“His personality just seems like ‘Well I’m just going to play football and I’m going to do this.’

“And I think maybe there was a clash between him and Pep, where he wouldn’t do what Pep wanted him to do and that’s why ultimately Pep let him go.”

Palmer highlighted one thing he didn’t like about Guardiola at City

Having worked his way through City’s academy and making 41 senior appearances for the club, Palmer was sold to Chelsea in a deal worth £42.5m (via BBC Sport) during the 2023 summer transfer window.

Mills isn’t the only former Blue to make a claim on the 21-year-old exit from the Manchester club, as Michael Brown said that Palmer was frustrated at City due to his lack of regular game time.

In fact, back in July, Palmer said that didn’t like being used as a substitute by Guardiola and that it actually made him play worse for City before being sold to Chelsea.

More recently, Nedum Onuoha claimed that City weren’t convinced about Palmer initially before he eventually started to feature for the first team.

However, having scored 31 goals and delivered 20 assists in 54 games for Chelsea, the former City academy graduate has proved to the entire country how good he is.