It's that time of year again when Pep Guardiola's future at Manchester City comes under the microscope.
The history-making coach has signed three extensions to the initial three-year contract he agreed in Manchester back in 2016.
The first of those came in the aftermath of City's first Premier League title win under Guardiola, when they amassed a record 100-point haul in 2017/18. Five of the next six top-flight crowns in England have ended up at the Etihad Stadium.
In 2020 and 2022, Guardiola penned his renewed terms during the November international breaks of those years, extending for two seasons each time.
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As such, speculation over the 53-year-old's future has been mounting over recent weeks, with his current terms up at the end of the 2024/25 season.
On Tuesday, November 19, Sam Lee of The Athletic reported that Guardiola had agreed a one-year extension to take him up to a decade in Manchester, with the option of an additional year.
The news will be widely celebrated by City supporters who have seen their team enjoy an unprecedented era of dominance. No team in the history of English football had won four top divisions in a row until City completed the feat last season, on the back of their 2022/23 Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League treble.
However, there is the question of squad renewal. City's roster has looked thin amid a spate of injury problems that have underpinned an ongoing run of four consecutive defeats in all competitions — the worst sequence of Guardiola's career. Key men such as Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Kyle Walker and Ilkay Gundogan are the other side of 30, Ballon d'Or winner Rodri is recovering from ACL surgery and record signing Jack Grealish has not returned to the heights of the treble season.
Any rebuild is probably more than a one- or two-transfer-window job and it is a project of renewal that Guardiola will now undertaker without his long-time ally Txiki Begiristain. City's director of football will leave at the end of this season to be replaced by Sporting CP's Hugo Viana. An intriguing part of that plot is Viana's protege Ruben Amorim arriving to take over a forlorn Manchester United just a couple of weeks after his Sporting ransacked a depleted City in the Champions League.
Then there is the over-arching issue of the Premier League's 115 charges case against City. The reigning champions have repeatedly denied all allegations of financial impropriety and rule-breaking, and Guardiola has regularly come out on the front foot on behalf of his employers.
The Catalan's new deal means he will be around for the aftermath of the 115 verdict, which is expected in early 2025. An independent tribunal recently sat for 10 weeks to hear evidence from City and the Premier League.
Pep Guardiola Man City contract length, salary
Guardiola's deal has not been officially confirmed by City, with that step set to be taken before the end of this week.
The notable difference to his previous two-year extensions is the "1+1" element this time around. However, changed circumstances at City mean this middle-ground makes a lot of sense.
Begiristain was the central figure, alongside fellow Barcelona alumni and City CEO Ferran Soriano, in creating optimum working conditions for Guardiola the City Football Academy.
Given the closeness of their relationship, it is unlikely Guardiola has been anything other than thoroughly well-briefed by Begiristain on Viana's plans and how the former Braga and Newcastle United midfielder likes to conduct business. He also worked under different sporting directors during the second half of his Barcelona tenure and throughout his three-year spell at Bayern Munich.
Similarly, it's unlikely Viana will be anything other than enthused by the prospect of working with a man recognised by many as the greatest coach of the modern era. Even so, the Viana-Guardiola axis is unquestionably a "known unknown" in Donald Rumsfeld's parlance and it appears club and manager might have acted accordingly.
When they publicly rubber-stamp Guardiola's new terms, City will not disclose his salary. However, his current annual wage of £20 million ($25.4m) makes him the second-best-paid coach in world football behind Atletico Madrid's Diego Simeone — a figure who has had a similar long-term shaping influence on his club.
Who will Pep Guardiola sign after new contract? Man City transfer plans
Prior to their treble-winning season in 2022/23, City completed the game-changing signing of Erling Haaland, brought in Julian Alvarez and Manuel Akanji for knockdown prices and acquired Stefan Ortega on a free transfer — now arguably the best No. 2 goalkeeper anywhere in world football.
Bolting those high-end additions onto a squad packed with elite talents at the peak of their powers brought about the desired result. Since beating Inter Milan in a nervy encounter in Istanbul, the hit rate has not been as good and that has caught up with City this season.
To many observers, the treble squad felt thin in terms of numbers. However, in the Champions League final, City's bench boasted Ortega, Aymeric Laporte, Phil Foden, Riyad Mahrez, Cole Palmer and Alvarez. There is nothing like that depth now. Guardiola's mid-season jettisoning of a malcontent Joao Cancelo showed his incredible capacity to find solutions from within a close-knit squad, but there is a limit to this.
With the exception of the hugely gifted Croatia defender Josko Gvardiol, it is hard to identify a key City signing over the past two summers that has improved the level of the squad. It is probably no coincidence that, at £77m, Gvardiol is the only truly top-dollar signing to have arrived in that period.
Jeremy Doku and Savinho are exciting wing talents with their best years ahead of them, but neither are anywhere near Mahrez in terms of goals and assists output. Gundogan's departure to Barcelona in 2023 robbed the squad of a key scoring outlet. Alvarez manfully filled that void, often grappling with uncomfortable midfield duties, then sought pastures new at Atletico Madrid. The initial signs since Gundogan's return from Barca, despite a sparkling Euro 2024, is that he might be a diminished force.
Part of that can be attributed to the fact he is playing more than expected in a midfield without Rodri and surrounded by other players in their 30s. Youngsters such as Nico O'Riley and James McAtee, despite the latter's two years of experience at Sheffield United, are yet to be trusted. There is a grudging acceptance and frustration among sections of the City fanbase that McAtee will go the way of Palmer: a gifted Mancunian attacking midfielder who will be his boyhood club's loss and someone else's gain.
Aside from concerns over Walker's advancing years and diminishing returns on the pitch, the defensive unit is still formidable when everyone is out of the infirmary, although the frequency of John Stones and Nathan Ake's visits is problematic in the context of a small squad. They are also examples of players who have blossomed into phenomenal performers on Guardiola's watch.
It is the middle where the main problems lie. All of Guardiola's best teams, from the Busquets-Xavi-Iniesta vintage at Barca, through Fernandinho, David Silva and De Bruyne in the 100-points season to the more recent Rodri-powered machine, have been defined by their midfields.
However, recent signings have fallen way short of the mark. Matheus Nunes has only had an extended run of games recently because of City's injury crisis and has done so on the left wing. This, along with Foden's long and sometimes torturous journey to getting regular games in his preferred central role, underlines how hard Guardiola finds it to completely trust players with a place in his midfield and all that that entails.
At City, he inherited De Bruyne, David Silva and Fernandinho. Bernardo Silva spent his first year out on the wing and might have stayed there but for De Bruyne's 2018/19 injury issues. In 2023, he struggled to effectively replace trusted lieutenant Gundogan. In 2024, Gundogan was his only midfield signing.
A January foray into the market, with Rodri's international team-mate Martin Zubimendi the most frequently tipped, seems likely. Beyond loosening what has come to feel like a slightly dogmatic approach to his midfield, adding more physicality and lessening the extent to which the goals burden rests on Haaland will define the early months of Guardiola and Viana's working relationship.
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Does Guardiola staying mean Man City are innocent in Premier League case?
The news from November 19 will no doubt have plenty putting 2+2 together and making (11)5.
If City are found guilty of the most serious charges levelled against them, they face a massive points deduction, possible relegation, or expulsion from the league. You can read The Sporting News' full breakdown and analysis here.
So, surely Guardiola must know something we don't because he won't want to model his latest touchline ensemble at Accrington Stanley?
Well, not quite.
Firstly, it is worth pointing out that City's bullishness in public statements on their legal cases — and despite reports by the likes of Der Spiegel featuring those infamous leaked emails — is absolutely reflected behind the scenes. The club believe their side of the argument will be proven as it was in July 2020 when the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned a two-year ban from UEFA competitions for breaching Financial Fair Play rules but upheld a fine for not cooperating with the investigation by European football's governing body.
It was at this point that Guardiola's relationship with off-field matters he'd tended to studiously ignore changed notably. His public pronouncements since — most notably after City's successful appeal against UEFA and following the Premier League's weighty charge sheet drop — have suggested he views the CAS verdict to be definitive. Anything after that is the result of some combination of mischief-making and petty jealousy on the part of City's rivals.
That's not to say that Guardiola is correct or otherwise in these assertions. But it's useful to acknowledge why he might have signed a new deal with such a seismic ruling hanging over City's heads. Put simply, all the indications are that he does not care.
Guardiola is also surrounded by some of his oldest allies in football at City, from the boardroom to his coaching and playing staff. Presiding over a relentless period of success and leaving those people to deal with any negative fallout from the 115 case does not feel like something that would sit well with a man who cares about his place in the game and its history.
When he signed that initial three-year deal back in 2016, Manchester City got a lot of what they were expecting from Guardiola. Finding a guy for the long haul is probably their biggest and most pleasant surprise of all.
