I have one Man City regret hidden deep inside me for many years, says Pep Guardiola ahead of farewell | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola has admitted one of his deepest regrets from his 10 years as Manchester City manager, not giving Joe Hart the opportunity to prove himself and moving the Englishman on immediately upon his arrival in 2016.

The 55-year-old spoke to Sky Sports ahead of Sunday’s final-day Premier League fixture against Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium – his last game in charge of the club – and used the occasion to reflect candidly on a decision that has lingered with him throughout his entire tenure.

Joe Hart was England’s number one and City’s first-choice goalkeeper when Guardiola arrived in the summer of 2016 but was swiftly loaned out to Torino before eventually leaving the club permanently.

Claudio Bravo was brought in as his replacement before Ederson arrived the following summer and went on to become one of the finest goalkeepers of his generation.

Guardiola: I should have given Joe the chance

As he prepares to lead the Blues from the Etihad Stadium dugout one last time, Guardiola did not hold back in his assessment of how he handled the situation nearly a decade ago.

“There is one regret I have deep inside for many years: I don’t give the chance to Joe Hart to prove himself, how good a keeper he was, you know?” he said on his regrets over the former England international.

“And I should have done. All respect for Claudio (Bravo), respect for Ederson when he came in he was important. But in that moment I should have said ‘Okay Joe, let’s try to do it together and if it doesn’t work then okay, we change it’. But it happened.

“Sometimes I am not fair enough. I regret it for the time. In that moment, I am always stubborn in my decisions, when I believe in that. When I have doubts, I talk with people, but I was sure 100 per cent that we have to do it that way. The club supported me with that.”

The honesty in the admission is striking. Guardiola has rarely dwelt publicly on decisions he regrets, and the fact that this one has stayed with him for nearly a decade – described as sitting “deep inside” – speaks to the personal weight he still attaches to it.

His acknowledgement that he was “not fair enough” and “stubborn” is precisely the kind of self-awareness that has made him such a compelling and complex figure throughout his career.

What does Guardiola’s admission tell us about his management?

The Hart admission is revealing not just for its content but for its timing – a manager on the eve of his final game choosing to surface a regret rather than only celebrate the triumphs.

It reflects a consistency of character that has run throughout Guardiola’s tenure at Manchester City: an unwillingness to paper over uncomfortable truths, even when the occasion might invite only sentiment.

Gianluigi Donnarumma recently described working with Guardiola as something “until you live it, you’ll never understand” earlier this season – a tribute to the depth of his preparation and care for the players around him.

That the same man can simultaneously acknowledge where he fell short of that standard, as he does here with Hart, is perhaps the truest measure of what has made him the greatest manager of his generation.