Pep Guardiola insists Champions League exit has no bearing on his Man City future

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has rejected any speculation over his contract situation being linked to the club’s performance in the Champions League.

City exited this year’s competition in dramatic

fashion, eventually falling to a comeback victory from 13-times winners Real Madrid, but the Spaniard has refuted any possible connection between that defeat and his future in Manchester.

The 51-year-old has just over a year remaining on his current contract and has said now is “not the right time” to be discussing an extension, with City attempting to claim their fourth Premier League title in five years.

Guardiola’s current term is the longest of his managerial career, having reached a coveted European final only once during his six-year tenure, losing out to Chelsea in 2021.

Aside from that feat, this year’s semi-final showing is City’s best in Europe, with Guardiola admitting the result was “disappointing” but is not something that will define his Manchester City legacy.

Interestingly, City’s Madrid collapse was the sixth time Guardiola has been eliminated at the semi-final stage of the competition, drawing him level with Jose Mourinho.

“If I extend the contract it will be at the end of the next season,” he asserted. “Before then it’s not going to happen. It’s many years and I have to see how the team and ourselves, how we are together.

“Knowing it, I would stay 10 more years. But we have to take time for that, absolutely. It’s not time, absolutely in this season, or during the next season.”

Asked about whether winning the Champions League would determine his City future, Guardiola added: “Absolutely not. We compete, for the margins, extremely well in the Champions League. So in my life, we won the Champions League in Barcelona with seven players who came from the academy. From the academy. Nothing changed my life. I was happy for that.

“Yes, I’m disappointed, we wanted to play the final, but it’s not going to change my future or my past. The reason why we came here to England, it’s already done. We wanted to do it, we did it.”

What needs to happen for a PL title playoff?
Manchester City and Liverpool’s Premier League title race is set to go down to the wire – but just how close are we to seeing a playoff for the title?

It has never happened before, but with just two games to go and three points separating City and Liverpool, it remains possible this season’s title race could be decided by a one-off match following the conclusion of the league season. What a prospect.

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