'Is this why Manchester City are struggling?' asks ludicrous media ...

Man City boss Pep Guardiola has split with his wife so we go ‘inside’ both his flat and his marriage. Did she cripple Rodri?

Liverpool face Nottingham Forest on Tuesday night in a genuine title race clash and Arsenal are preparing for a north London derby that could see Mikel Arteta sack talk reach new levels. Oh and there are transfers and sh*t.

So what’s the top story on The Sun‘s ‘football’ page?

‘Inside Pep Guardiola’s £2.7million luxury bachelor pad in Manchester as Man City boss ‘splits from wife after 30 years”

Regular readers of Mediawatch will be utterly shocked to discover that ‘Etienne Fermie, Sports reporter in London’ has not actually been inside Pep Guardiola’s £2.7million luxury bachelor pad in Manchester. And not just because he is based in London.

What he has done is find some images from the Manchester Evening News from 2017 of an apartment in the same block. Which is exactly like going inside Guardiola’s apartment in 2025. Exactly the same.

The first photo caption is a doozy: ‘Pep Guardiola lives in a Salford apartment.’

Yes. Yes, he does. Just not that one. Or the other one pictured.

‘Operations director Gavin Bailey told the Manchester Evening News in 2017: “It’s not like a hotel.

“We’re trying to make it more special, this is effectively your home during your stay, and we run it that way.”‘

Are those quotes – from a man who is now COO of Stockport County, incidentally – remotely relevant when you are pretending to go ‘inside’ Guardiola’s actual (not ‘effectively’) private home? Are they balls.

But at least they haven’t claimed to have gone ‘inside Pep Guardiola’s shock split from wife with ‘no third party’ involved’. Step forward the Mirror.

This story – wonderfully credited to ‘Gerard Couzens News Correspondent & Gerard Couzens News Correspondent’, presumably so that Gerard Couzens can claim double the page views in an effort to reach his new targets – actually comes from Spanish journalist Lorena Vazquez. Even she’s never claimed to go ‘inside’ the shock split or indeed Guardiola’s bachelor pad.

Couzens and Couzens’ story includes this quite incredible line: ‘Guardiola, who has three grown-up children with his fashion boss wife…’

It’s how Pep always describes her anyway…

Over to MailOnline and this doozy of a headline:

‘All the worrying signs something was wrong with Pep Guardiola as he ‘splits from his wife after 30 years together’: From that bizarre scratching incident to ranting at fans… is this why Manchester City are struggling?’

Unless she a) injured Rodri and b) persuaded Pep not to strengthen his Manchester City squad last summer, we’re going to say ‘no’.

One of the ‘worrying signs’ was that his ‘wife left Manchester for Barcelona five years ago’, since when City have only won four Premier League titles, a Champions League and various domestic pots. The writing was very much on the wall.

Elsewhere on MailOnline: ‘Pep Guardiola ‘moving out of £8.5m family home’ after shock split from wife Cristina, as Man City manager lives alone in £2.7m Manchester flat.’

He’s been living alone in his £2.7m Manchester flat for nearly five years; you would think Gerard Couzens (yes, him again) would know that, what with being ‘inside’ the shock split.

He writes (again): ‘Guardiola, who has three grown-up children with his fashion boss wife, has always stayed at their family home – an £8.4million mansion in Barcelona’s most elite neighbourhood – when he has returned to the Catalan capital from Manchester.

‘Now, it remains clear as to where he will base himself in the future when he spends time in Barcelona. When not in the Spanish city, he lives in Deansgate CitySuites in central Manchester.’

We think you mean ‘unclear’, which does rather destroy the ‘moving out of £8.5m family home’ headline; maybe he will stay in the house he co-owns when he returns to Barcelona? Just as he has done throughout the last five years they have been living apart.

As the journalist who actually broke the story said: “We are going to carry on seeing them together.”

Talking of Manchester City and wives, The Sun really have excelled themselves here with an SEO-tastic headline:

‘Why Kyle Walker REJECTED a mega-money move to Saudi Arabia – and it has nothing to do with wife Annie’

Glad we have got that sorted. Did he REJECT it because it’s a sh*t football move? Yes, yes he did.

And where one leads, the Mirror inevitably follow:

‘Kyle Walker rejects move to Saudi Arabia and it has nothing to do with wife Annie Kilner’

Shame. We were desperate to go all the way ‘inside’ their Saudi mansion. Or at least a Saudi mansion.