Back to the Manchester City Newsfeed

MARTIN SAMUEL: The interview is REALLY about Cristiano Ronaldo's utter inability to accept he can no longer be the focal point of the team… that's why Pep Guardiola did not pursue him and why Mikel Arteta would not tolerate him

Piers Morgan will not be alone in hoping his friend Cristiano Ronaldo signs for Arsenal. Pep Guardiola, one imagines, will be a big fan of the idea, too.

Having sold Mikel Arteta one of the hardest-working centre forwards in football, Gabriel Jesus, plus his now first-choice left back, Oleksandr Zinchenko, then watching Arteta's rejuvenated Arsenal establish a five-point gap on Manchester City, Guardiola must be wondering what can be done to rein in the league leaders.

Sign an increasingly ineffectual and disruptive 37-year-old egomaniac who was once the best player in the world, but still acts as if he is, even if his best days are behind him, and will take a torch to team spirit if anyone so much as veers from a fawning narrative.