Former Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure dispute with Pep Guardiola is once again dominating the media after the former player branded the City manager a “snake” as he once again reflected on their turbulent relationship.
Toure’s latest remarks surfaced during an appearance on the French programme Zack en Roue Libre, with Foot Mercato publishing excerpts in which the Ivorian revisits a feud that has shadowed a substantial part of both men’s careers.
Their shared history at Barcelona and later Manchester City transformed what might have been a productive partnership into one of football’s most discussed player-manager fallouts.
The pair first worked together at Barcelona, where Guardiola, after taking charge of the first team in 2008, immediately reshaped the squad to implement his tactical blueprint.
Yaya Toure dispute with Pep Guardiola began with one of the manager earliest major decisions which was to elevate Sergio Busquets, who had been part of Guardiola’s Barcelona B side, ahead of Toure as the preferred holding midfielder.
It was a move that shifted the balance of the squad and relegated Toure to a more peripheral role.
Although Toure remained an important figure in the squad at the time, the statistics underlined how sharply his involvement declined.
Over the 2009–10 season, he completed the full 90 minutes in just nine matches—a drop that the midfielder found unsettling and difficult to accept.
He was approaching what many considered the peak years of his career, yet he was struggling to influence matches in the way he believed he should.
When Manchester City came calling in July 2010, Toure saw an opportunity to step out of Barcelona’s shadows.
His move to the Premier League proved transformative, both for him and for the club.
He quickly became one of City’s defining figures, helping propel the team from ambitious challengers into a genuine force in domestic and European competition.
His goals, leadership and presence in midfield helped shape the club’s modern era.
Six years later, Guardiola took charge at City, reuniting the pair in circumstances that were instantly viewed through the lens of their past.
At City, Yaya Toure dispute with Pep Guardiola started again. He once again found himself sidelined, no longer central to Guardiola’s plans.
While he remained part of the squad, his appearances dwindled significantly, and the relationship between the two deteriorated further.
The situation came to a head when Toure’s then-agent, Dimitri Seluk, launched public criticism at Guardiola, accusing him of humiliating the midfielder by freezing him out.
The comments sparked a major internal row, forcing Toure to issue a formal apology on Seluk’s behalf. Even then, the rift was never fully repaired.
Toure played only a marginal role during Guardiola’s early seasons in Manchester before departing at the end of the 2017-18 campaign.
Public accusations resurface once more
Since leaving City, Toure and his agent have repeated their criticisms of Guardiola, making a series of allegations about how the manager treated him both in England and previously in Spain. Though years have passed, the midfielder’s feelings appear undimmed.
Speaking on the French show, Toure offered his most recent—and perhaps most striking—assessment of Guardiola’s character.
“I don’t see a man, I see a snake,” he said, pulling no punches in his latest retelling of the breakdown in trust.
He went on to describe a moment during his time at Barcelona when he claimed the club’s coaching staff encouraged him to stay.
According to Toure, he and his family viewed the situation very differently.
“The Barcelona coach calls me back then and says, ‘You have to come back, it’s important,’” he recalled.
He explained how his wife reacted strongly to the idea of him extending his stay under Guardiola.
“My wife says to me, ‘Are you going to listen to that nonsense?’ He treated you like dirt, and now he wants you to stay, and you’re going to stay? Let’s go to Manchester, my brother.”
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Toure also suggested that Guardiola’s late appreciation of his talent—particularly after Toure impressed at the 2010 World Cup—felt disingenuous.
“The guy didn’t play me all year, and at the end of the year, I shine at the World Cup (2010), and he brings me to Barcelona,” he said.
He added that even within his household there was strong scepticism about Guardiola’s intentions.
“My wife would tell me about him. ‘Sheytan, he’s not a man, he’s wicked,’ she sees him as a negative person.”
Despite the passage of time and Guardiola’s immense success at both Barcelona and Manchester City, Toure’s perspective remains unchanged.
His remarks suggest he still views those managerial decisions as deeply personal rather than purely tactical.