More than once, over the course of the last few months, staff members at Manchester City have been summoned to an unexpected all-hands meeting. These gatherings are not entirely unprecedented, but they are rare enough to send flurries of whispers around the club’s training facility across the road from the Etihad Stadium.
The speculation as to what they might be about has fallen into two categories. Employees at City have, like everybody else, been waiting for more than a year to discover the outcome of the club’s arbitration with the Premier League over their alleged breaches of financial rules. They are alert to the fact that a verdict could land at any time.
As that case has dragged on – and on – some have started to wonder if there is another, more imminent announcement that the club might want to break to them en masse: the one confirming that Pep Guardiola, after far longer in the Premier League than any of them had ever dared to hope, is stepping away.
It should be stressed, of course, that none of those meetings has proved quite as earth-shattering as anticipated ; they have, instead, proved either reassuringly or anticlimactically run-of-the-mill . The fevered conjecture, though, illustrates the extent to which even those inside City wonder whether Guardiola is coming to the end of the road.
There is, at this stage, absolutely no concrete reason to believe we have entered the final few months of the 55-year-old’s glory-soaked tenure in Manchester, that his trip to Anfield today – for the latest instalment of the game that has, more than any other, defined his time in England – will be his last.
The contract he signed in the midst of arguably the worst run of his time in England, in November 2024, runs until the end of next season. He said, at the time, that he wanted to restore City to the “consistency” and “stability” the club had come to expect.
At no point has he so much as hinted that he does not intend to see it through. In December, he noted that he had “18 months left” on his deal and said that, while “sooner or later, when I’m 75 or 76, I will quit City”, he had held no talks with the club to that end. He did, admittedly, then muddy the waters – adding the caveat that whether he has “10 years on my contract or six months, football changes a lot” – but that could just as easily be an acknowledgement of reality as a Swiftian Easter Egg (Taylor, rather than Jonathan).
The theory that Guardiola is preparing the ground for his departure, then, is based less on fact and more on a feeling, an instinct, a sort of communal hunch. The supporting evidence might kindly be described as circumstantial; it might also be the sort of stuff that is pinned to the wall of someone’s parents’ cellar and connected with spools of red string.
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There is, for example, Guardiola’s increasing frankness in his dealings with the media. He has, it is broadly agreed, been more outspoken than normal this season, on a variety of subjects, culminating in a press conference this week in which he welcomed the opportunity to discuss the sort of political issues that traditionally give communications staff conniptions.
Grateful, in his words, to have a first chance to use his bi-weekly public appearances to discuss politics in “10 years”, Guardiola touched on Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by masked ICE officers in Minneapolis. The images he has seen from all of those tragedies, he said, “hurt” him.
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Given that Guardiola is effectively a high-profile soft-power advocate for Abu Dhabi – accused along with the rest of the United Arab Emirates of being “complicit in the genocide” in Sudan – it seems fair to suggest that his moral position is more complex than he is prepared to admit in public; the sincerity of his views, though, should not be in doubt.
Guardiola appeared at an event in support of Palestine in Spain last week, wearing a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh; he is a longstanding patron of OpenArms, a Spanish NGO that helps migrants crossing the Mediterranean; over the years, he has made clear his unequivocal support for Catalan independence.
It is apparent that the club are considering their options for the moment if and when he does decide to leave
It is apparent that the club are considering their options for the moment if and when he does decide to leave
What is striking, more than anything, is that he chose to talk about all of it at an event where he was only contractually obliged to give injury updates for a Carabao Cup semi-final second leg. His explanation, that he has never previously been asked for his opinions, is not strictly true: he has had to face them sporadically during his time in England. What is different, now, is that he is apparently prepared to engage with them.
That has been interpreted by some simply as a sign of confidence. Guardiola has never hidden his disdain for the media especially well; he could be hostile even in his days as European football’s darling at Barcelona. Bolstered by time, age and unrivalled success, he simply no longer sees any reason to watch his words.
To others, though, it has played as demob happy, an indication – put down your can of Monster Energy Drink and grab the red string – either that he finally feels free to speak his mind, or that he knows he only has a limited number of opportunities to get his views across left. In both instances, the inference is that he has reached a decision, even if he has yet to impart it to anyone.
That logic might be slightly woolly, but it is not entirely unmoored from reality. It emerged, during Enzo Maresca’s dismissal at Chelsea, that the Italian had been talking to officials at City about replacing Guardiola at some point; it is apparent that the club – as they must – are considering their options for the moment if and when he does decide to leave.
That might extend beyond finding a successor to his throne. Txiki Begiristain, Guardiola’s longstanding ally, left City last year; so did Juanma Lillo, his assistant, confidant and sensei. Manel Estiarte, his consigliere, is still there, but the club’s staff looks less dependent on the manager than it has at any point in the last decade. Hugo Viana, the new sporting director, and Pep Lijnders, Guardiola’s assistant, could be seen as appointments for a post-Guardiola world.
The expensive revamp of his squad is a little more ambiguous. City have spent close to half a billion pounds on fees alone in the last year or so, a transformation that could be read in three ways: enabling Guardiola to go again; ensuring him a golden swansong; futureproofing against his departure.
Only Guardiola – and possibly one or two others – can be sure which it is. Even he may not be entirely sure. Everyone else, whether they are inside or outside a club built in his image and to his specifications, just has to wait, and to wonder.
Photograph by Mats Torbergsen/ NTB/AFP/Getty Images