With only one season left on Pep Guardiola's Manchester City contract, and no news of an extension, rumours of the Spaniards departure after next season are beginning to surface.
Jonathan Liew, chief sports writer for The Independent, joined OTB:AM this morning to preview the Liverpool vs Man city Champions League second leg, with Guardiola's side needing to overturn a 3-0 deficit from the first leg at Anfield.
Liew believes that the project Pep joined, turning Man City into a superpower club, is already well underway, but has doubts whether Pep will be there to see it through to the end, though officials at City are trying hard to prevent that outcome.
"It's easy to forget just how many players Guardiola shifted out in his 18 months, two years in the job. The team he inherited was like Hart, Zabaleta, and Kolarov, it's been completely transformed. Whether Guardiola stays for the project I'm slightly more skeptical of".
"I think behind the scenes at City the likes of (Ferran) Soriano and (Txiki) Begiristain are mounting a 'keep Pep' campaign of the magnitude they used to get him there in the first place. I think Guardiola himself is pretty clear that his fuse at a certain club only has a certain amount of time to run".
Expanding on that point, Liew questioned whether the high levels Pep demands from not only his players but from the club he helms is not suited to a long term reign, as players will become tired with his tactics over time.
"I wonder if his style of management, which is so entirely exhaustive, so transformative, really does have kind of a finite lifespan".
"I think we'll get a clearer picture of that this time next year, because these things do turn very quickly. Fatigue becomes an issue, mental fatigue becomes an issue, so we'll see what happens next year but personally I think City would be very lucky to get a fourth season out of him, and that we're probably already in the second half of the Guardiola reign".
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