Barcelona and Bayern Munich would have sacked me, admits Guardiola after debut Man City campaign

Pep Guardiola says he would have been sacked by Barcelona or Bayern Munich if his first season at either of those clubs had been as disappointing as his debut campaign with Manchester City.

But Guardiola also conceded that his struggles had left him with no margin for error at City next season and that he will be ousted if he blows a “second chance” to deliver success at the Etihad Stadium.

“At that club [Barcelona], if in six months you don’t win, you are really out,” Guardiola said. “At Barcelona or Bayern Munich, there you have to win by far. If not, they don’t give you a second chance.

“Here [at City] they gave me a second chance and we will try to do it. In my situation at a big club – I’m sacked. I’m out. [For] sure. Definitely.

“At the clubs I worked at before I am not here, but here we have a second chance and we will try to do it better than this season.”

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City will guarantee qualification for next season’s Champions League if they beat West Bromwich Albion at the Etihad on Tuesday and Arsenal drop points at home to relegated Sunderland, although the likelihood is the scramble for the top four will go down to the final day, when Guardiola’s side are at Watford.

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Fifteen points adrift of title winners Chelsea, eliminated from the Champions League at the round of 16 stage, beaten in the FA Cup semi-finals and out of the League Cup at the second hurdle, this is the first season in Guardiola’s gilded managerial career that he has failed to win a trophy.

By contrast, his first season at Barcelona ended with a treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League and he won both the Bundesliga title and German Cup in his debut campaign with Bayern.

Guardiola joked that “you have the titles [headlines] for tomorrow in the newspaper, you are happy, eh?” after admitting he would not have survived a comparable first season at Barcelona or Bayern “because I have to win [there]”. But he accepted City’s Abu Dhabi paymasters would not tolerate another underwhelming campaign.

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“If what happens next season is not going well, I’ll have one more year of [my] contract and if it’s not going well they [the City owners] are going to change manager,” Guardiola said.

“The gap is big in terms of points [to Chelsea] but when we played against them it’s not too big and we are going to shorten it next season.

“I am not here alone. It looks like when everything happens and it’s not good you can change the manager, my friends, so it’s not so complicated. If you want to put pressure on me and say next season we have to win or if not – I knew that before I arrived here.

“I said many times I have this expectation because of what I have done in the past. I arrived at this club and I tried to do my best. Some managers will have that pressure so I have to handle that. If not, I go home. I came here to try to win this year. It was not possible.

“I will try to do it. And after that and the results are not [good] – if we are judged just for the results – we will be sacked and another [manager] is coming here, and you will be here again with the new manager, and you will make the same questions, so that is what it is. I am not staying here because I am Pep or what I have done a long time ago. I know what the problem is.

“But I am not going to be [wondering] all summer, ‘Oh what will happen next season if I don’t win some titles’.”

Guardiola is likely to sign up to seven new players in the summer as part of a huge overhaul of the squad. The Catalan said on Monday that City had not been clinical or solid enough, particularly against physical, long-ball teams such as West Brom and Crystal Palace, but suggested he felt “the quality of our players is quite enough to have been better” than they were.

“I think we knew the problem during the season but I could not solve it,” he said.

Meanwhile, Guardiola has dismissed claims by Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger that the likes of West Brom and Watford, or Middlesbrough, whom Liverpool, currently third, face on Sunday, have little left to play for.

“I don’t understand how the managers speak for the other clubs,” Guardiola said. “He plays against Everton and Sunderland, no? Both teams are done, no? One is relegated and one is in the Europa League, so it’s the same situation. If you don’t want to complain, do it better during the season and you will not have this problem.”