Manchester City confirm Guardiola exit after Premier League final day | OneFootball

Manchester City have confirmed that Pep Guardiola will leave Manchester City after their final game of the Premier League season against Europa League winners Aston Villa on Sunday.

The Spaniard won 17 major trophies during his time in Manchester, a haul of 20 overall, including six top flight titles and a first ever continental treble when his side took home the Champions League in an unforgettable 2022/23 campaign.

Guardiola will continue to serve City Football Group in the role of Global Ambassador, giving technical advice and working on projects with clubs within the organization.

“Don’t ask me the reasons I’m leaving,” said Guardiola. “There is no reason, but deep inside, I know it’s my time.

“Nothing is eternal, if it was, I would be here. Eternal will be the feeling, the people, the memories, the love I have for my Manchester City.”

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Guardiola became the first manager in history to lead a club to four successive English top flight titles between 2020 and 2024 – taking six of the last eight titles available – and a domestic treble in the 2018/19 season.

The 55-year-old also achieved a 100-point season to lift the 2017/18 title, setting the record for the most wins in a league season (32) and most goals scored (106) – a feat that is yet to be repeated by his own or another club.

City’s honours for 2025/26 include triumphing in the Carabao Cup and winning an eighth FA Cup, with Enzo Maresca rumored to be the man to take them into a new era after a dominant decade under a manager who has helped shape the modern game.

Guardiola’s incredible impact on English game

Sam Bunce, Football reporter

Pep Guardiola’s methods have sent ripples through English football throughout his ten years of service at Manchester City winning 20 trophies, including six Premier League titles at the helm.

The Spaniard’s stylistic mark on English football is indelible. From grassroots to the elite stage, many of the methods Pep has implemented have filtered through the full pyramid over the last decade – for better or worse.

Stubbornness to play out from the back tempts fate and invites unnecessary pressure for teams who are less fruitful when attempting to emulate Manchester City’s incessant possession.

The tedious recycling of possession sometimes irks the spectator and pushes them to favour more pulsating sides, like Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool or the current Champions League holders PSG under Luis Enrique.

Nonetheless, the control that Guardiola’s Manchester City teams use to consistently wear down opponents has overcome the very best teams across Europe, prevailing even when competing managers thought they had devised the best defensive antidote.

The spotlight rightly hones in on the possession-oriented approach Guardiola inculcates, including the inventive fluidity of positions and inverted full-backs breathing life into a new tactical era.

However, also paramount are Guardiola’s tactics when out of possession and particularly in the counter press.

Tireless midfielder Bernardo Silva, who will also leave Manchester City at the end of this season, has long epitomised the work rate and willingness to break up play necessary to achieve their numerous years of glory under Guardiola’s watch.

Yet despite his packed trophy cabinet at the club being a product of his commitment to his own brand of football, Guardiola has frequently valued the diversity of different styles in the upper and lower reaches of the English game.

Guardiola was pictured glued to the League One tie between Stockport County and Port Vale last month, all the while Bayern Munich outscored PSG 5-4 in their record-breaking Champions League semi-final first leg.

The style he has helped to shape and become synonymous with, ‘tiki-taka’, has proven successful by adapting to the various players who have walked through the door over the years, and at previous clubs Barcelona and Bayern.

January acquisition Antoine Semenyo was tasked with integrating quickly in City’s pursuit of toppling league leaders Arsenal, who are now tantalisingly close to claiming the title after a 22-year wait.

Guardiola would stress how important understanding the former Bournemouth winger’s strengths was. The same could be said for Erling Haaland when the marksman joined in the summer of 2022.

The hunger to continue winning coexists with the drive to keep tinkering his toolkit to match the current requirements, with his emphasis on patient build-up moulding to suit the rigours of the Premier League and the players at his disposal.

That flexibility was further underlined when Manchester City recruited former Liverpool assistant coach Pep Lijnders as his right-hand man at the beginning of this term.

As Guardiola is reportedly set to close the third chapter of his managerial career, styles will continue to collide and evolve from his methods.

Just like his apprentice Mikel Arteta, it is not incumbent upon potential successor Enzo Maresca to staunchly preserve the brand of football entrenched into City’s modern identity.

It is more than likely that any seismic shifts will still derive from Guardiola’s tactics and how high the Spaniard has set the bar for developing and managing elite players.

Is Maresca the perfect successor to record-breaker Pep?

With all that said, it will be incredibly difficult to follow up success after success under Pep Guardiola.

For context, the Spaniard is tied in second for number of Premier League title wins with George Ramsay and Liverpool great Bob Painsley – just one place below the seemingly insurmountable Sir Alex Ferguson.

But Enzo Maresca has had first hand experience of how his former boss operates as a manager. He has the blueprint, and is one of two notable assistants to Pep who went on to secure the hotseats at some of England’s biggest clubs.

The other? He’s currently on the verge of bagging a first top flight title in 22 years and a maiden Champions League trophy for Arsenal, having also benefitted from learning under one of the greatest gaffers of all time.

However, there are favourites elsewhere. City’s former captain and title winner Vincent Kompany has led Bayern Munich to yet another Bundesliga title, making them one of Europe’s most feared teams this season.

England captain Harry Kane has scored 36 times in 31 league games this season under the Belgian, who would have Erling Haaland at his disposal should he decide to make the move back to his former employers.

Reacting to the news of Guardiola’s impending departure, former manager Stuart Pierce highlighted Mareca’s insider knowledge yet pressed that the best man to recommend a replacement is the one leaving the club.

He said: “Enzo Maresca knows the club.

“I would fully expect, Pep being the outgoing manager, with the influence that he has at the club, if I was the owner, the first person I’d ask about the next manager would be Pep Guardiola.”

Could Guardiola’s legacy be tainted by City’s alleged charges?

James McClair, Football reporter

The Catalonian will be bemoaned up and down the pyramid for inadvertently subjecting thousands of supporters to watching stiff centre-backs and goalkeepers uncomfortably roll their foot over the ball, yet several of his other innovations have equally changed the fabric of the English game.

From the inverted full backs of Oleksandr Zinchenko and Joao Cancelo to the fluidity John Stones displayed when stepping into midfield in a Champions League final. The flying wingers of Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane, the trickery of Jack Grealish and Riyadh Mahrez – Pep has relentlessly added new strings to his team’s bow.

It’s unthinkable given the forward prowess of Erling Haaland and Sergio Aguero that City once operated without a recognised striker, but the ease with which they’ve accommodated numerous spearheads has demonstrated how well-oiled the rest of the Sky-Blue machine has been.

Whilst Pep Guardiola will no doubt be heralded as one of the game’s greatest when he says goodbye to Manchester City next Sunday, there’s a lingering sense that the true extent of the 55-year-old’s achievements is yet to be determined.

The small issue of 115 alleged breaches of Financial Fair Play regulations between 2009 and 2018 against the club has prevented a unanimous recognition of Pep as the Premier League’s unparalleled gaffer. Sure, it certainly hasn’t hindered the City boss but he has nothing left to prove on these shores, regardless of the eventual ruling.

The Citizens have only twice broken stride long enough to allow Liverpool to prise the Premier League trophy from their grasp since Guardiola first tasted English top flight glory.

Arsenal will have the chance to buck that trend and claim a first title in 22 years at Selhurst Park on Sunday.

Should Mikel Arteta topple his former master in this year’s competition it may prove the cruellest tip of the hat to Guardiola, whose alumni keep improving. Arteta’s education at the Etihad has undoubtedly been a mighty aid whilst Vincent Kompany continues to impress in Bavaria.

It’s understandable why some struggle to separate Pep’s superhuman achievements with the charges that City haven’t managed to shake – at least for now. After all, which manager wouldn’t envy a squad that boasted the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan.

But Pep has milked every drop of quality from his players across 10 marvellous seasons and has ensured his influence will live on for at least another 10, irrespective of what comes of the investigation into City’s charges.