Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola had no problem with the club refusing to meet Leicester City's price for Riyad Mahrez yesterday.

Guardiola praised City for sticking to their guns and walking away from talks over Mahrez after Leicester demanded £95million for the Algeria star.

"I admire the club for having parameters," said Guardiola. "Maybe in the future we can buy players for £100m but it will be for a special player and at the moment we cannot afford it.

"When a player doesn't come it's because it's not possible. I understand completely. We make an offer and the clubs and the managers want more. Sometimes the deal is done, sometimes not. It's not a problem, believe me.

"People say that only we have money. We are not the richest club in the world. We have passion, always have amazing workers, a club with an amazing structure.

"It's at that level of Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and an amazing CEO (Ferran Soriano) who sees the level and what we can do in the future.

"I say that because I follow the club. We bought a lot of players, not just one, two or three. If you want to play this way, I'm not a magician.

"I have good players, amazing players. The club has provided me with them. To compete, you need good players, and they are so expensive. We have a level and we cannot go above it.

"All the players we bought, it was £40m, £50m, £55m. It's a lot of money but the big difference is that we need to buy a lot."

Informed that Mahrez had said he is 'gutted' to miss out on a move to the Etihad, Guardiola replied: "He's a Leicester player. I don't talk about it too much. The window is over, the guys who are here will finish the season."