Fashioning City 3.0 will be Pep's greatest challenge yet

The Premier League champions are in need of a rebuild and their managerial godfather is prepared to stay to oversee it after agreeing a new one-year contract

- Richard Jolly

It could seem a rare vote of confidence when a club on a record losing run gives a manager a new contract. Then again, when the manager is Pep Guardiola, his longest sequence of defeats only stands at four; so does his unique chain of English league titles.

So if it is a vote of confidence, it is by Guardiola in Manchester City and not vice versa. There were reasons for the manager to walk away; some would say, 115 of them. Guardiola’s decision to commit himself to the club for a further year, until 2026, and, with a one-season option on top of that, seems to reflect a belief that City will emerge completely or relatively unscathed from the hearing into the Premier League’s century of charges.

Guardiola has tended to be bullishly outspoken in the club’s defence, even though he is not in the dock personally and most of the alleged offences predate his arrival. Guardiola said in September the rest of football wanted City to “disappear off the face of the earth”. A new deal nevertheless indicates he does not expect next autumn’s fixture list to contain Plymouth and Preston, let alone Braintree and Boston.