PEP’S SILVER PINING
Guardiola: We are desperate to win a trophy.. and if we don’t our season will be a failure
PEP GUARDIOLA admits this season will be judged a failure if he does not win a trophy with Manchester City.
Guardiola arrived at the Etihad last summer with huge expectations because of his success with Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
He knows he must deliver silverware and admits he will not have succeeded if City finish the campaign emptyhanded.
“I know what my standard is in terms of the past and titles,” said the City boss. “I know what’s on my shoulders and I have to handle that.
“No silverware – it will not be a good season. I knew that in August. I know we will be judged on the titles we win.
“If I have no silverware, I will not be here for a long time. Being a manager depends on results. But I always believe deep in my heart that results depend on the way you play.
“That’s why I need to be convinced that we’re playing better every day.”
Guardiola’s focus is on improving City’s performances game-by-game because he believes this is the foundation for long-term success.
He can point to progress and City have gone 10 games unbeaten, which contributed to his February Manager of the Month award. Yet he understands managers are ultimately judged by silverware in the trophy cabinet and ruefully recalled how his three years at Bayern were perceived a “disaster.”
“My period in Munich was judged as a disaster because we were not able to win the Champions League,” said the Spaniard.
“But when I was at Munich, we won three leagues in a row, we won two cups, and all the time reached the semi-finals, but it was a disaster.
“What I would like to see in my team is them playing better at the end of the season than at the beginning. “When you look at the Premier League, one team, Chelsea, in terms of results has been amazing. It’s so difficult to compete with that.
“But we want to be there until the end, we don’t give up.
“That’s what I want – and also to achieve a final in a cup would be a dream for the club.”
Guardiola admits the next three games will define his first season and after today’s FA Cup quarter-final at Middlesbrough, City face Monaco in the Champions League and then Liverpool in the Premier League.
He admits it is the biggest week of City’s campaign and has called on his players to ensure they are still fighting for silverware after they play Liverpool tomorrow week.
“Definitely, it’s the biggest,” he said. “It’s an important week.
“We have done a good job in the past, especially in two competitions, but we are doing quite well in the Premier League as well.
“Of course this week is so, so important. These three games will decide what’s going to happen in the next two months, definitely.”
Guardiola insists Joe Hart’s City future will be determined in the summer. The England goalkeeper has said he “is pretty much surplus to requirements” at the Etihad Stadium and does not expect to be back at the club next season.
The 29-year-old (inset) is on loan at Serie A club Torino having lost his place at City following the signing of Claudio Bravo earlier in the campaign.
Bravo’s subsequent struggles – Willy Caballero has been preferred to the Chilean
for seven of City’s last nine games – have raised questions about the wisdom of this decision. Guardiola recently appeared to close the door on the possibility of a Hart return – maybe prompting the keeper’s latest remarks – but the City manager claims nothing has yet been decided.
Speaking at a press conference to preview City’s FA Cup quarter-final at Middlesbrough today, Guardiola said: “I have said many times we will explain about all the cases at the end of the season – the cases of the players that are here, the players who are happy or unhappy and the players who are on loan.
“Joe is a player for Manchester City and we are going to decide at the end of the season.”
Hart, who has 68 England caps, appears to think his future lies away from City.
He told the BBC’s Premier League Show: “I would say that I’m pretty much surplus to requirements at my parent club at the moment.
“I want to play football, I love to play football.
“If that opportunity is not going to be given there, then I am going to have to look elsewhere – and so I may have to make somewhere else my home.
“I don’t know where my future lies, in terms of time-wise, because I’ve certainly had no communication with anyone.”