A contract extension gives the manager time to revamp, adapt to new challenges and address unfinished business
Manchester City’s longest-serving manager was a tactical innovator born far from England who pioneered the use of a withdrawn centre-forward. Pep Guardiola will still have a long way to go to match the 13 years the India-born Les McDowall, who won the 1956 FA Cup and devised the Revie plan, spent in charge of City but if he sees out his new contract he will have been there for seven, more than anybody else other than Wilf Wild, who saw the club through the second world war.
Seven years at any club represents a remarkable achievement in the modern game, particularly at one so historically prone to volatility as City and especially so for the 49-year-old Guardiola, whose intensity was supposed to restrict the time he could spend at any one place. That may yet become a problem but equally no club have ever been set up quite so precisely to meet the demands of a manager as City were for Guardiola.
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