MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - MAY 19: MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - MAY 19: Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chairman of Manchester City, and Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City, speak following the team's victory in the Premier League match between Manchester City and West Ham United at Etihad Stadium on May 19, 2024 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - MAY 19: MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - MAY 19: Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chairman of Manchester City, and Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City, speak following the team's victory in the Premier League match between Manchester City and West Ham United at Etihad Stadium on May 19, 2024 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Any other manager in world football might feel under pressure with a run of nine defeats in 12 and just one win in that period. Not Pep Guardiola.
The City manager has always said he will honour the contracts he signed, unless his bosses ask him to leave. With six Premier League titles in seven years including the last four titles, Guardiola's position remains as safe as it has ever been despite the losing run, and his recent admissions that he has not been good enough over the last two months.
Opposition fans have mocked Guardiola by singing 'sacked in the morning' during the winless run, and some pundits have wondered whether the change in fortunes on the pitch could prompt the manager to walk away. Everything Guardiola has said, however, dismisses that idea and he has spoken about wanting to rebuild this City side between now and 2027.
But even Guardiola knows this run is something different to anything he has ever faced in his career. It must help, then, that his regular conversations with chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak have given him the backing he needs to turn things around at the Etihad.
"Every week we talk. I feel incredibly supported," Guardiola said of his chats with his chairman. "We behaved like in the first season maybe but it was completely different. We both know it, when there's a moment something wrong happens then we are going to take decisions. I feel incredibly supported from him.
"Of course from Txiki and Ferran but especially Khaldoon in that terms. We say 'OK the situation is what is' and what we have to do to improve the team and come on, let’s go to the next one and it’s always been positive."
Guardiola also backs himself to find a solution, insisting he has never doubted his ability to find the end solution during their sudden drop in winning games.
"No. I'm so positive. Of course there are doubts. [But] I'm so positive," he declared. "We make the ordinary extraordinary. At the beginning they say City will win the Premier League.
"Now it happens the opposite because it's extraordinary to lose a lot of games. some of them we play well, but it happens for a reason. A month have the feeling that I can do it. it's more difficult because I don't have the players."