Manchester City visit Arsenal on Monday, which not only brings together the two clubs most likely to give Leicester a run for their money in the title race but should bring Manuel Pellegrini a welcome bit of conversational relief. The City manager sees a lot of himself and his football philosophy reflected in Arsène Wenger, though the main advantage of playing Arsenal at the moment is that they are the only club from last year’s top four not being actively linked with Pep Guardiola.
As the Bayern Munich coach seems to be preparing for a change of scenery at the end of the season it is widely imagined he will be heading for a spell in England. City have long been at the front of the queue for his services, having already imported some of the key personnel he worked with behind the scenes at Barcelona, though Chelsea now have a coaching vacancy and are bound to be interested.
While Manchester United say they are still solidly behind Louis van Gaal and his somewhat stolid brand of football, a few more poor results to follow the early exit from the Champions League could bring about a reassessment of their position should a coach of Guardiola’s quality become available.
So either City already have their man, or at least an understanding with him, or they face a fight from their rivals. Pellegrini is perfectly relaxed about the situation, just unwilling to say too much about it. The City manager signed a contract extension last season to take him past the end of this one, but is experienced enough to know that even contracts count for little at the biggest clubs.
“The big teams have their targets,” he says. “If you work at a big club you know there will always be rumours, unless you are winning every single game. All you can do is try to ensure your results are as good as possible, and sometimes that might not be enough. As a manager you always depend on what kind of a job the owner thinks you are doing. The owner has the final say.”
Harsh but true, though an extra incentive, Pellegrini claims, to do well this season. City’s admiration for Guardiola is beyond the rumour stage, after all. “I cannot talk about Pep, but I can assure you that all the important managers want to work in the Premier League, it is impossible not to want to work here,” Pellegrini says.
“I am sure Pep Guardiola will work here some day. I even hope he will have the opportunity to work at Manchester City too, because I love this club and I care about its future, and I am sure he would do a good job. When is the future, I don’t know, but if the future turns out to be next year the most important thing for me to do is try to win the title again this season. To win two titles in three years would be quite an achievement, I think, and we were runners-up last season too. That was not our best season, I admit, but at least it was not a disaster.”
In the circumstances Pellegrini can only be impressed with Wenger approaching 20 years at the same club, and he is. He even reckons the Arsenal manager could carry on into his seventies. “I think experience is very important, this is a career where you improve every year,” he explains.
“José Mourinho has just had an important experience, the kind maybe he has not had before in his career, and when he is 60 he will be a better manager for it. Of course some day you have to finish, but I would say managers in their fifties and sixties are at the best age to handle big players and big clubs.”
Now 62, Pellegrini has seen a lot, in Spain and South America as well as England. “I think I manage players better now than I did when I started,” he says. “When I was 40 I was only just a little bit older than the players and I [was] too close to them. I had lots of arguments. Now I have experience and knowledge, and that is more important. As long as you still enjoy it, and can still achieve results, you should carry on.”
