Pep Guardiola's new contract with Manchester City will take him past a decade in charge at the Etihad Stadium.
The slew of trophies won by the esteemed Catalan tactician is entirely in keeping with his career prior to arriving in the Premier League.
However, a coach famed for his intense approach towards winning as much as for the winning itself was never supposed to be here for such a prolonged amount of time.
Following defining four- and three-year stints at Barcelona and Bayern Munich respectively, Guardiola's longevity is perhaps the greatest surprise of his time in Manchester.
His fourth contract extension with City, following fresh terms in 2018, 2020 and 2024, is once again for an additional two years. It puts Guardiola in rarified company among the managers to have spent the longest amount of time in charge of Premier League clubs.
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Longest-serving Premier League managers
5. Pep Guardiola: Manchester City (2016 — present)
Guardiola endured a trophyless first season at City in 2016/17 and has gone on to redefine the possibilities of on-field achievement in English football, winning six of the subsequent seven Premier League titles, including an ongoing record-breaking run of four in a row.
City's maiden UEFA Champions League triumph in 2022/23 completed a treble and is one of 18 pieces of silverware won by Guardiola in Manchester, a haul that also includes an unprecedented sweep of England's three domestic trophies in 2018/19. No wonder City wanted to keep him around.
If Guardiola sees out his latest contract, he will climb a couple more places on this list.
4. Jurgen Klopp: Liverpool (2015 — 2023)
Klopp took over at Liverpool after Brendan Rodgers was sacked early in the 2015/16 season. If Guardiola had left at the end of his previous terms in May 2025, he would have edged narrowly past Klopp in cruelly fitting fashion.
These two managers sit nicely alongside one another on this list as coaches whose simultaneously contrasting and converging philosophies have defined this era in English football. Klopp and Guardiola inspired one another to greater heights, although Liverpool twice amassing points totals in excess of 90 only to lose the league by a point to City on the final day in 2018/19 and 2021/22 leaves a lingering sense of what might have been.
However, there is also what was: Liverpool's first league title for 30 years in 2019/20 and a sixth European title among three Champions League final appearances. Klopp's Anfield tenure is rightly regarded as one of the very best the Premier League has seen.
3. David Moyes: Everton (2002 — 2013)
Despite a wonderful redemption arc capped by UEFA Conference League glory with West Ham in 2022/23, Moyes is unfortunately still probably best remembered for being sacked by Manchester United 10 months in a six-year contract in April 2014 as Alex Ferguson's ill-fated 'Chosen One'.
The irony is that his damagingly brief time in the Old Trafford hot seat was earned via the third-longest managerial stint in Premier League history. The Everton of the present day can only forlornly dream of the stability and certainty Moyes' 11 years and three months at Goodison Park provided.
There were a couple of scrapes with relegation but Everton were more typically a top-half proposition, regularly in the mix for the European places. Wayne Rooney made his professional breakthrough under Moyes and when his old boss made the same journey to Old Trafford almost a decade later, it was deserved validation for his superb work on Merseyside.
2. Alex Ferguson: Manchester United (1992 — 2013)
Yes, yes, we know Ferguson actually started his historic stint in charge of United in 1986, but for the purposes of this article, we're looking solely at the Premier League era. It is a period Ferguson made his own and one over which he still casts an almighty shadow more than a decade on from his retirement.
The inaugural Premier League following the split from the Football League in 1992/93 ended with United's first top-division title since Matt Busby led Bobby Charlton, George Best, Denis Law and the rest to glory back in 1966/67. Ferguson duly followed that up with a staggering 12 more, making United the most successful club in English football and making good on his sneering ambition to knock Liverpool "off their perch".
The former Aberdeen boss also made hay in the domestic cups, including league and FA Cup doubles in 1993/94 and 1995/96. He went one better in 1998/99 with United's unforgettable treble triumph. The second Champions League of his tenure arrived in 2007/08, the other side of reinventing himself to ultimately prevail in the face of fresh challenges presented by Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho.
Arsene Wenger: Arsenal (1996 — 2018)
Towards the end of their rivalry and as relations between the two old campaigners warmed, Wenger wistfully acknowledged that Ferguson "no longer sees me as a threat". Yet the intensity of the United vs. Arsenal rivalry either side of the turn of the century had been something to behold, and Wenger's Gunners were more than equal to their illustrious foes.
A come-from-behind title triumph in 1997/98 bruised United and served as fuel for Ferguson to put together a run of three in a row. But Wenger was building something special and a team boasting the sublime talents of Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Robert Pires swept to glory in 2001/02, completing the double with the FA Cup as they did four years earlier.
Arsenal somehow contrived to gift United the league over the final stretch in 2002/03 before going invincible the following season to achieve sporting immortality. Then Mourinho arrived at Roman Abramovich's Chelsea to change the terms of engagement at a time when Arsenal's move to Emirates Stadium restricted them in the transfer market.
Wenger still racked up FA Cup successes, lifting the trophy seven times overall, but the big prizes remained elusive throughout his final decade in charge.
