PEP’S FUTURE Stars will want to know boss
EVEN before setting foot inside The Etihad Stadium, Pep Guardiola was Manchester City’s unique selling point.
Over the next 12 months the Premier League champions will be hoping to secure their manager’s future to ensure they continue to be a club the world’s top players want to join.
Guardiola’s contract with the
Blues expires in the summer of 2023 – and potential signings will want to know whether they will be working with one of the most charismatic coaches in the game beyond the end of next season.
City were able to persuade Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling to play under Manuel Pellegrini for a year because the planned arrival of Guardiola in 2016 was one of the worst kept secrets in football.
Since then, world-class talent has moved to East Manchester in a torrent.
Bernardo Silva, Joao Cancelo, Riyad Mahrez, Kyle Walker, Ederson, Ruben Dias, John Stones,aymeric Laporte, Ilkay Gundogan, Leroy Sane and others have joined City because Guardiola wanted them.
Last summer, it was the attraction that prompted Jack Grealish to break Astonvilla fans’ hearts.
That’s why the question of Guardiola’s future will become so compelling during the coming year.
City will be in the market for Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland in the summer – along with every top club in Europe.
With super-agent Mino Raiola representing the Norwegian, cash will be near the top of the agenda.
But so will the debate about who will be in charge at The Etihad over the next few seasons.
Haaland, like all elite players, will want to know about his chances of picking up a few medals as well as bags of money.
Guardiola is into his sixth season at City. It is an illustration of how settled he is in Manchester that he has spent more time in charge there than he did at either Barcelona or Bayern Munich.
The ground was being prepared for his arrival even when Sergio Aguero was scoring the most famous goal in Premier League history in 2012.
By September of that year, former Barcelona vice-president Ferran
Soriano was appointed chief executive.
The following month,txiki Begiristain, the man instrumental in unleashing Guardiola as Barca coach four years earlier, became director of football.
Both Spaniards have been key to City’s subsequent development on and off the pitch.
But it was their presence in Manchester that paved the way for Guardiola – and established a £200million state-of-the-art campus that has become the Catalan’s footballing laboratory.
City have won three of the last four Premier League titles and Guardiola has also won the last four Carabao Cups and the FA Cup.
But the achievement of winning the Champions League away from the Nou Camp still eludes him.
And while that remains an itch that needs scratching, Guardiola continues to insist the Premier League tastes sweeter to him than the caviar of European success.
“The Champions League is a cup competition,” he said. “Of course, it is a huge achievement to win it, but one bad day and you’re out.
“Winning the league is the measure of your team, especially the Premier League.to do it, you must fight for 38 games, against incredible teams and managers.”