Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City future is still up in the air. The Spanish manager, who has been with City since 2016, is now in the final year of his contract and has yet to pen an extension.
City’s board have made it clear to the 53-year-old that they are keen for him to stay at the Etihad, and, according to TEAMtalk, are willing to offer him a unique one-year rolling contract to make that a reality. The club are optimistic that by giving Guardiola more power over his future, they can convince him to stay for at least another year.
That being said, however, City aren’t banking on Guardiola staying. According to The Athletic, the club have been actively lining up potential replacements for the Spaniard should he leave, with Sporting CP manager Ruben Amorim and Bayer Leverkusen boss Xabi Alonso among those mentioned.
De Zerbi is also a target
According to GiveMeSport, former Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi is also a potential candidate to replace Guardiola. De Zerbi was in charge of Brighton for two seasons between 2022 and 2024, guiding the Seagulls to a club record sixth placed Premier League finish in his debut campaign. At the end of his second season at the Amex Stadium, however, the Italian was surprisingly let go by the club. The exact reason why was not apparent until last month, when Brighton Chairman Tony Bloom told all to The Athletic.
Bloom told the publication that the Brighton board and De Zerbi were unable to see eye-to-eye on how the club’s transfer business is managed, which sees its transfer and scouting department have the final say on all ins-and-outs.
“Roberto had thoughts on certain players, but that is not the way we as a club work. The club will decide on the players potentially to bring into the club, in conjunction with the head coach”, Bloom explained.
“It’s not a situation, the way we work, that the head coach says, ‘I like this player and that player’, and that’s what we do,” he added. “If a head coach has some ideas, that comes in as part of the process, but a head coach really liking a player has got to fit many characteristics, it has got to fit with the data analysis we do.”
Bloom said that because of their differing opinions, things between De Zerbi and Brighton were “never going to work out long-term.”
De Zerbi at Marseille
After leaving Brighton, De Zerbi joined Ligue 1 side Olympique Marseille this summer. Since taking over as coach, he’s lost just one of his seven games in charge and has been lauded, as he was at Brighton, for his high-intensity, exciting, and intelligent style of football.
His brief spell in France, however, has already been as controversial as it has been impressive, mainly due to De Zerbi insisting the club sign striker Mason Greenwood, who was outlawed by Manchester United after he was accused by his ex-girlfriend of domestic abuse.
United prohibited Greenwood from ever playing for them again as a result of the case, though they did let his contract run down by way of loaning him to La Liga side Getafe before selling him to Marseille for a fee of £26.7 million.
Despite the move being criticised by the mayor of Marseille, Benoit Payan, De Zerbi told L’Equipe that Greenwood was the “first player he called” after landing the Marseille job.
“I said that when a player becomes my player, I am the first to pin him to the wall when he makes a mistake,” he said. “But towards the outside, I will always defend him as I would defend my son.”