Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola says he would have been sacked by any other club following the Premier League champions’ long win-less run earlier this season.
City take on rivals Manchester United at Old Trafford on Super Sunday, live on Sky Sports, trying to maintain their push for Champions League football next season having now started to resemble the side that won the last four Premier League titles in a row.
However, such a scenario seemed a distant dream for City’s fans after Guardiola’s team endured a horror run of just one win in 13 games in all competitions back in November and December that left them languishing down in a totally unfamiliar seventh place in the table on Boxing Day.
A debilitating injury list, including a season-ending ACL for key holding midfielder Rodri, was partly to blame for their surprise slump in form, although the manager also holds his hands up.
“One of the main reasons has been the absence of many injured players in important departments so we were competing in toughest period with only 12 to 13 senior players in the team,” said Guardiola.
“It’s difficult every three days. In the past when we won a lot, although we had a lot of problems as well. Not as much as this season, but a lot. Always we were able to bounce back and overcome the situation.
“This season I was not able to help the team to do it. I was not able to find the right trick. In the past I was able to guide them, to tell guys, ‘this is the path you have to do to survive in that moment’, because the good moments will come. The sun rises in the future. We were not able to do it.”
However, while Guardiola admits he was expecting some kind of drop-off in form after his side won four straight titles, he did not think it would be this severe.
“I said many times and I’m incredibly honest – the success that we had in the past, that surprised me because I wasn’t expecting it,” he said.
“What happened this season, when in the last one or two seasons more or less, I said it’s going to happen. But I didn’t expect maybe so deep, you know.
“I thought, ‘okay, we’re going to drop’. But in terms of results, in terms of performance, we dropped unexpectedly.”
So much so, in fact, that heading into the previous Manchester derby at the Etihad in December, Guardiola – who signed a new two-year deal in November – even said his job at City would be under threat if the team did not start winning again soon.
City did lose again that day as United came from behind to win 2-1 late on and Guardiola said that at any other club, without all the success he has brought to the Etihad since 2016, he would have lost his job.
“In other clubs, without the recent success, I would have been sacked, definitely,” he said. “This is a big club that you have to deliver good things.
“But also I think all of us, the staff, myself, we deserve a chance, after what we had in the past.
“In another club, in another environment, we lost a lot of games in the big clubs, it cannot happen. But fortunately, they [the City board] gave me a vote of confidence to continue.”
Looking ahead to next season, though, Guardiola said he expects a return to the City of old.
“In the moment, we had bad moments, but listen, in football, in sport, you have that period, so I said as well many times, you cannot win all the competitions you are in,” he said.
“You cannot win all the time because it’s simply impossible. So, I never expect when the last season we won the Premier League, we won the next 10 years.
“So many things happened. What happened last season, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen next season. Hopefully, next season will not happen like this season. Of course, we have to change things, definitely. But next season will be better.”
And while Guardiola said he and his players will give everything in the last eight games of the campaign to qualify for next season’s Champions League – City currently sit in fifth place, which as things stand would be enough to see them progress into Europe’s premier club competition – he is also quick to point out it would not be the end of the world if they do not make it.
“How many important clubs in the last three, four or five years have not been playing in the Champions League and still they are there? The club will find a solution,” he said. “Of course, we want to be there. But just in case it’s not going to happen, what’s next? We cannot just stop and be complaining all the time.
“Of course, it’s in our hands. We have eight games. So, we’re going to go for it. We are the only club in the last 15 years, every single season have been in the Champions League. That’s consistency. That is the club, how good we have done it. And we want to continue in that way.
“The club will not die. In terms of what we have to do for next season, being there. But, of course, we have on Sunday our derby. And after still seven games left and four at home, three away. All of them difficult. I’m not denying it because they are good.”
Guardiola, though, thinks he has seen enough from City’s last two wins at Bournemouth in the FA Cup quarter-finals on Sunday and at home to Leicester City in the league on Wednesday to give him real belief his side are back.
“In the last two games, I saw something that I like,” he added. “I remember a few things that we saw in the past. And this is what we have to build from there.”
