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Pep Guardiola would be sacked if he had PM’s record, says Gary Lineker

The former England star’s comments came after Michael Gove compared Boris Johnson to the Manchester City manager.
The former England star’s comments came after Michael Gove compared Boris Johnson to the Manchester City manager. The former England star’s comments came after Michael Gove compared Boris Johnson to the Manchester City manager.

Match Of The Day host Gary Lineker has claimed Pep Guardiola would be sacked if he “had a run of results like Boris Johnson”.

The former England striker’s comments came after Cabinet minister Michael Gove described the Prime Minister as “the Pep Guardiola of British politics”.

Lineker appeared to disagree with Mr Gove, tweeting: “If Pep Guardiola had a run of results like Boris Johnson, he’d be sacked.”

Guardiola led Manchester City to the title in 2018 with the highest points tally ever accumulated by a Premier League side, while last season his team won the league title, FA Cup and League Cup.

Mr Johnson meanwhile has experienced a rocky start to his premiership, enduring a string of Commons defeats, while most recently 11 justices at the Supreme Court ruled his decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful.

Lineker’s post was quickly met with thousands of interactions and hundreds of comments, while social media users joined him in ridiculing Mr Gove’s comparison.

“Pep Guardiola never lost six matches on a row, sacked 21 of his best players or tried to suspend the football season for five weeks, and has never been defeated 0-11,” one Twitter user wrote.

Another social media user tweeted: “The only way in which Boris Johnson and Pep Guardiola are similar is that they’ve both had an impact on the value of Sterling,” referring simultaneously to the value of the pound and the improvement of City forward Raheem Sterling.

Others focused on alternative comparisons, with one post reading “Boris Johnson is more Roy Hodgson than Pep Guardiola,” while another wrote “Boris is Pep Guardiola if he landed in Wealdstone with a transfer budget of £25,000.”

Mr Gove didn’t escape unscathed either, with one Twitter user describing him as “Steve McClaren, the Wally with the brolly” in reference to the manager’s disappointing tenure as England boss.

And while plenty felt the comparison with Guardiola was insulting to the former Barcelona coach, his record in the Champions League with City was not off limits.

“Pep has taken Man City out of Europe more than once though!” read one tweet.

Manchester City’s next fixture sees them travel to Everton for Saturday’s late kick-off in the Premier League, while Mr Johnson was forced to cut short his visit to the United Nations in New York in order to make a Commons statement regarding the legal defeat.