MANCHESTER CITY plan to sit down with Pep Guardiola this summer and hand him a new contract.
And senior figures at the Etihad are confident the ex-Barcelona chief will extend his stay well beyond summer 2019.
Pep has just 18 months left on the £12million-per-year deal he signed in July last year — but is loving his stint in Manchester.
The club’s hierarchy believe the environment and infrastructure they have in place at the City Football Academy is perfect for him to prosper.
And they are optimistic that Guardiola will at least stay for longer than the four years he spent in charge at the Nou Camp.
They even hope he could decide to make England his home for the long-term and that he could look to build a ‘dynasty’ at City. Given their incredible start to the season — with 17 wins from 18 Premier League games — this will be the news that City’s top-six rivals have dreaded.
Their 4-1 win at home to Tottenham on Saturday put them 14 POINTS clear at the top of the table with the season not yet halfway through. Guardiola took a year off after finishing at Barcelona feeling burned out having found the politics which went with his coaching role difficult.
He re-emerged in Germany at Bayern Munich but stood down after three years, feeling that some former players still carried too much influence at the club.
But City hope the working conditions they have created are ideal for him — which is why chairman Khaldoon al Mubarak is quietly confident he will extend his stay. Meanwhile Guardiola, 46, believes the seeds for City’s thrashing of Spurs were sewed in pre-season.
He reckons the 3-0 friendly win over Mauricio Pochettino’s side in July in the United States sparked his side’s epic run.
Guardiola said: “Our first game pre-season was against United and we lost.
"The second was against Tottenham and we created eight, nine, ten chances to score loads.
“But there we saw all together, the players as well and not just me, that is the way we have to do that. Since then, we’ve maintained that level.”
From The Sun
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