Having guided Manchester City to a record breaking fourth straight English league title Sunday, Pep Guardiola warned he is "closer to leaving than staying" as the final 12 months of his contract loom on the horizon.
Guardiola's current terms at City expire in 2025 and the 53-year-old made clear his plans to lead the champions for a ninth year. That may, however, be that for the second most successful manager in the history of the English top flight.
"The reality is I am closer to leaving than staying," Guardiola said. "We have talked with the club and my feeling is that I want to stay now. I will stay next season and during the season we will talk. But after eight or nine years, we will see."
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Sunday's 3-1 win over West Ham ensured that City held off the push from Arsenal to win a sixth league title under Guardiola and a 15th trophy in total. Notably, victory on the final day also propelled this side clear of some of the greatest in England's history. Huddersfield Town in the 1920s, Arsenal in the 1930s, Liverpool in the 1980s and Manchester United on two occasions under Sir Alex Ferguson were all teams had won three in a row. No club had ever turned a threepeat into a fourpeat.
Guardiola noted that that opportunity provided him extra motivation after last year's treble-winning campaign, but he then hinted that there were perhaps no more world's left for him to conquer.
Asked if he felt he had completed English football, he said: "I had that season last year after [winning the Champions League to complete the treble in] Istanbul. I said, 'It's over, there's nothing left.' But I have a contract, I'm still here.
"Some of the moments I'm a bit tired, but some of the moments I love and we are here winning games, looking good with new players. I started to think about [how] no one had done four in a row [so] why don't we try? And now I feel it's done, so what next? FA Cup [Final against Manchester United on Saturday].
"Gary Lineker told me that no team has done back-to-back Premier Leagues and FA Cups. What I want is for my players to enjoy two or three days and then we have two days to prepare the final but right now I don't know what exactly the motivation is to do it because it's difficult to find it when everything is done.
"But knowing the players and myself I know that when we are there we will say why should we not win today? Why should we not work as much as possible to do what we have to do? And I know we are going to do it."
It should be noted that Guardiola has publicly and privately toyed with the possibility of leaving City -- by far the longest job of a managerial career that has encompassed similarly successful stints at Barcelona and Bayern Munich -- only to extend. These hints come ahead of what could be a significant 12 months for the champions, who are expected to face an autumn hearing over the 115 charges brought against them by the Premier League. City deny all the charges. There is also a squad to be reshaped with the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Kyle Walker and John Stones heading deeper into their 30s.
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