- The Observer
14 25.08.19 Football
Sky Bet EFL
Pep Guardiola says Benjamin Mendy
is working “like an animal” to have
a successful Manchester City career
following an injury-blighted fi rst two
years at the club.
The left-back was signed for £52m
in the summer of 2017, a then world
record fee for a defender, but a series
of knee and other problems have
limited him to 17 Premier League
appearances. The 25-year-old’s last
game was on 17 April, when City lost
their Champions League quarter-
fi nal to Spurs despite a 4-3 win on
the night. While Mendy did not fi n-
ish that match, he has stepped up his
training and could return after the
international break in October.
Guardiola believes the Frenchman
can fulfil his potential at City. “If
Benjamin is fit, he will have suc-
cess,” the City manager said. “He has
a special quality. The people from the
Barcelona [clinic ] are telling me that
he is working [ incredibly hard], like
an animal and hopefully he can main-
tain that because it is not about one
day or one week, it is about every day
doing that. These kinds of traumatic
injuries are a bit unlucky, one after
another. I am happy [with him] but I
don’t want to say too much. I am sat-
isfi ed because it has been two weeks
and his recovery after training has
been good. He doesn’t feel any pain
and that is good. ”
City have claimed the Premier
League title in the past two seasons
with 100 and 98 points, respectively.
Yet Guardiola is sure his team can
improve this season , pointing to last
weekend’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham
at the Etihad in which City had 30
shots on goal , the visitors t hree.
“The way we played against
Tottenham showed we can do bet-
ter than last season,” he said. “Even
Chelsea when we won 6-0 [last term]
- the Tottenham game was better.
“When we arrived the first five
times at goal [against Chelsea], we
score four. The way we played, it was
better [versus Spurs].”
Guardiola, whose team visit
Bournemouth today , is aware that
maintaining such levels of intensity
is diffi cult given the fi xture sched-
ule. “It is impossible to sustain
every three days, playing the way we
played against Tottenham [which
was derived] due to the emotion of
it being the fi rst game at home, them
being the fi nalists of the Champions
League, the emotion of the players:
they were incredibly focused,” he said.
“The problem when you play every
three days, you have to lift them and
say: ‘Come on, let’s go, guys .’ But the
level was so good. It was incredible,
the way we play, so try to keep going
and build up from here.”
Premier League
Guardiola:
hard work
can pay off
for Mendy
Jamie Jackson
While the extension
was welcomed by Bury
fans, the deadline remains
challenging and many
questions remain
CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/GETTY IMAGESLeague grants Bury
Tuesday lifeline
to complete takeover
The English Football League has
given Bury until Tuesday for their
owner, Steve Dale, to conclude a sale
or the club will be expelled from the
league after 125 years.
Dale received a takeover offer in
principle on Friday night from the
directors of a sporting data and
analytics company, C & N Sporting
Risk, including Rory Campbell,
son of the former Labour
party communications
director Alastair.
In a statement
released after the
EFL board took time
to consider the news
yesterday afternoon,
the league said it was
not prepared to extend the
deadline beyond Tuesday at 5pm
because of the impact on the season.
The EFL has suspended Bury’s
fi rst fi ve scheduled matches in
League One because of Dale’s
failure, since his £1 takeover of the
club in December, to provide the
evidence required by league rules
that he has the funding for the club
to meet its commitments.
The EFL’s executive chair, Debbie
Jevans, emphasised on Thursday
that it will already be diffi cult forthose fi ve fi xtures to be rescheduled
given the crowded calendar of
a 24-club division, hence the
board’s refusal to allow any further
postponement of matches for
extended takeover negotiations.
In a statement made on Friday
night Campbell, 32, and Henry
Newman, 30, the directors of C&N
Sporting Risk, said they had been
in discussions for 10 weeks about
buying Bury, but they needed an
extension to the midnight deadline
because “it is a very complicated
scenario and there remain a number
of outstanding legal and other
issues that have to be addressed”.
Having considered that position
yesterday morning, the EFL said in
its statement: “The board has fully
considered the information
that has been made
available by C&N
Sporting Risk and,
whilst no formal sale
has been completed,
despite reports to
the contrary, enough
credible information
was presented to allow
the board to agree to work
exclusively with the club and C&N
Sporting Risk over this bank holiday
weekend in an attempt to fi nalise
the change of control and achieve a
positive outcome for Bury FC.
“The EFL board, however, remains
fi rmly of the view that the League
cannot be in a position whereby
any more of the club’s 2019-20
fi xtures will be suspended due to
the integrity of the competition and
the impact on other clubs in the
League and therefore has stated thatmatters must be concluded by 5pm
on Tuesday 27 August 2019.
“If in the event a successful
outcome is not achieved by this
point, then Bury FC’s share in the
EFL will be withdrawn and its
membership in the League will
come to an end.”
Jevans described this extension of
four days over the bank holiday as
“a fi nal effort to allow the club the
opportunity to survive”.
While the extension was
welcomed by Bury supporters who
had reacted with increasing alarm
and distress at the prospect of their
club being thrown out of the league
and probably folding, the four-day
deadline remains challenging and
many questions remain.
While Campbell, previously a
technical scout and analyst at West
Ham United, and Newman, a coach
and former joint manager of Barnet,
said they had been in discussions
for 10 weeks, Dale himself had said
that until Friday he has had no
detailed negotiations with them.
As Campbell and Newman made
clear, there are layers of complexity
and huge problems at Bury, and
they must themselves satisfy the
EFL they are “fi t and proper ” to
take over, although they are said
to have provided proof of funds
to the league – and reassure Bury
supporters about their competence,
fi nance and plans.
Bury, formed in 1885, are in
fi nancial ruins, with a company
voluntary arrangement (CVA)
needing fi nance to pay “non-football
creditors” 25p in the pound out
of £4m they are owed, around
£750,000 to current and former
players and other football creditors,
and expected £1.5m losses for the
season. Dale has said that a further
£1.75m must be paid under the CVA
to a company, RCR Holdings Ltd,
which bought an apparent £7m
debt owed by Bury for £70,000, and
now wants a quarter of the full £7m
alongside other creditors.
RCR Holdings was formed two
days before the club’s 18 July
creditors meeting at which it voted
to pass the CVA, and the sole owner
and director, Kris Richards, 41, is
Dale’s daughter’s partner. There
is also a £3.7m mortgage on Gigg
Lane taken out by the former owner
Stewart Day, several of whose
property companies were about to
collapse when he hastily sold the
club to Dale for £1 nine months ago.
The Bury North MP James Frith,
who has worked intensively to fi nd
a solution for the club , criticised
the EFL for granting so short a time
for a deal to complete: “I fear the
extension is not long enough with
so much still to be done,” he said.
“Technically the EFL have
narrowed and shortened the road
they might have handed us. For now
we must trust that the new owners
and current owner work in their
best interests and ours to get this
over the line.”Bury my heart at Gigg Lane:
league clubs who went underMaidstone United August 1992
Overspent to achieve promotion to
the Football League in 1988 then
in 1991-92 gambled £400,000
on land for a new stadium – but
planning permission was denied. In
deep debt the squad was put up for
sale and, without enough players
to fulfi l fi xtures, they resigned
from the league early in 1992-93.
Liquidated. A successor club play in
National League South.Aldershot March 1992
Division Four play-off winners
against Wolves in 1987 but went
down in 1989. Debts led to a
winding-up order in 1990. Th e
bizarre intervention of Spencer
Trethewy, a 19-year-old property
developer later convicted of fraud,
brought only short-term relief.
Wound up mid-season. Successor
club in National League.Accrington Stanley February 1962
Successors to a Football League
founder member, the new club
never rose above the third tier
and dropped into Division Four in- A new stand, bad transfers
and a tax bill caused a crisis and
an electricity demand led to
mid-season resignation; went
under in 1966. Successor club
entered Football League in 2006;
now in League One.
The long road back
Data company C&Nallowed time over
bank holiday to save
historic Shakers.
David Conn reports