Pep Guardiola has come out to express his fears of being sacked if Manchester City fails to beat Real Madrid in the Champions League. Though the chances of City dismissing Guardiola is highly unlikely, anything is possible in today’s football world.
Guardiola has been able to help City set an outstanding record in which he has won five major trophies. Though two Premier League titles have been overlooked since he has failed to take the club past the quarter-finals of the Champions League in the last three seasons.
“I want to win the Champions League,” Guardiola told Sky Sports.
”I dream [of it] and I will enjoy preparing for the games against Madrid, to see what we can do and this process, two weeks before, will be the happiest moments of my profession, to imagine what we can do to beat them.”
“If we don’t beat them, OK, come the chairman or the sport director and say, ‘It’s not good enough, we want the Champions League, I’m going to sack you’. OK, [I’d say], ‘Thank you, it was a pleasure’. I don’t know [if this would happen]. It has happened many times and could maybe happen” the City boss added.
City will travel to Real Madrid for their first leg of their last-16 tie on 26 February. Guardiola also expressed how unfair managers are being judged based on trophies won and disregard for their hard work.
He said: “We give a bad, bad message for the new generation, for our kids, to just count the winner, the trophies to win. You say the season is a disaster but if you win the Champions League it will be exceptional. Why? It is difficult to win it. If you don’t, we can say in more than 100 years of history [there] were 100 failure seasons for Manchester City. That is not true.”
“Always the people believe like you are Pep or Jürgen [Klopp], or another name, you have to win all the titles every season and [get] 2,000 million points, [score] 2,000 million goals. Sometimes it is not possible.”
Manchester City has fallen behind Liverpool in the Premier League this season and is 22 points adrift from the Reds. Earlier this week the City boss hinted at rebuilding his squad over the summer. Pep, who received an increase in pay sometime in the middle of last season, earns roughly €1.94 million per month. The Etihad stadium boss currently earns more than any player in the Premier League.
Manchester City will host West Ham at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday when the Premier League returns from the winter break. City is hoping to bag away 3 points but with Raheem Sterling out with a hamstring injury and Oleksandr Zinchenko suspended, their options are currently pretty slim.
