Pep Guardiola is expected to leave Manchester City at the end of the season, club staff and players are preparing for that outcome after Sunday's Premier League match against Aston Villa and the club is already considering how to mark his decade at the Etihad Stadium.
Guardiola has spent 10 years at City and in that time he has won six Premier League titles, the Champions League, three FA Cups and five EFL Cups — 17 major trophies and 20 trophies in all. Those totals are the measure of a reign no one inside the club disputes. Guardiola himself has repeatedly said he still has "one more year" on his contract — "I am here, I have a contract." He also replied "No way," when asked whether the FA Cup final would be his last visit to Wembley and answered "Yeah." when asked if he would still be at the club next season.
Behind the scenes, however, the picture is less certain. Sources say Guardiola is expected to leave the Etihad Stadium at the end of the season, and members of staff are understood to believe he will step down. Members of the squad are also anticipating his departure after the final game against Aston Villa. City officials insist Guardiola has a contract for next season and have said they are hopeful he will remain as manager.
Context matters: City are not leaving on a quiet note. The team have already secured the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup this season and remain in contention to turn a dominant campaign into a seventh league title. That record — trophies stacked across a 10-year spell — is why the club is considering formal ways to honour Guardiola, including reportedly naming the newly expanded North Stand after him.
The tension is immediate and personal. Guardiola's public statements — most recently at a news conference where he said, "Next. So many times – I have one more year," — sit awkwardly beside the clear expectation within the club that this season will close his time at City. City say one thing; staff and squad preparation suggest another. The club must now manage both a sporting run-in and the logistics and symbolism of a potential departure while the manager continues to insist he remains under contract.
If Guardiola does step down as expected, attention has already turned to who would follow. Enzo Maresca is the frontrunner to replace him, according to people inside the club, and City are weighing how to stage a goodbye that matches the scale of what Guardiola built at the Etihad. Naming the North Stand is one option the club are understood to be considering; decisions on a public farewell would come alongside the task of choosing a successor to protect the position City occupy in the Epl Table 2025/26.
Whatever the board decides, the moment will close a chapter that reshaped English football. Guardiola leaves — or stays — with 20 trophies to his name at City and the club facing a final domestic fixture that now doubles as a possible farewell. The single most consequential question left is practical: will Manchester City accept this transition now, or push to keep Guardiola beyond the season he and many around him have already treated as the end of a decade that transformed the club?
