Manchester City have always known that Pep Guardiola will leave one day but somehow they will have kept him for at least a decade.

A manager that only stayed four at his beloved Barcelona, and three at German juggernaut Bayern Munich, has signed a new deal that means he will spend at least ten years at the Etihad with the option of an 11th. And while everyone at City is delighted that Guardiola is staying beyond that summer, so too will be anyone eyeing up the job.

City are in a position whereby they can attract the very best names to replace Guardiola when they need to. That's why they can seriously look at competing with Real Madrid for Xabi Alonso, or scouring their immense network for the best possible fit.

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However attractive the job is though, anyone taking it for next season would have been given a hospital pass. Guardiola had been intent on leading City at the revamped Club World Cup tournament next summer; they have qualified because they won the Champions League in 2023 and are reigning Club World Cup champions, and nobody was going to tell the manager who achieved these things that he could not take charge if he wasn't going to renew.

If he had left next summer though - and there were still people close to him who thought he would in the days and weeks before he decided otherwise - it would have been horrendous for a new manager to take over. The Premier League have not confirmed the start date for next season but with a World Cup the following summer there could well be less than a month between the end of the Club World Cup and the beginning of the league.

In that month, the City players that will have had no sustained rest for 12 months would need at least three weeks to rest and ideally longer if the club are to avoid a serious injury situation. City have known this is on the horizon and they and Chelsea asked if their first few league matches could be delayed next season to accommodate both competitions but the Premier League said no.

Had Guardiola left, the new manager would have been left with about a week with his players before the league kickstarted, and that's without taking the Community Shield into account the week before that City have played in for the last four years. It doesn't matter how good the incoming coach would have been - nobody can handle that well.

That won't have been primary in Guardiola's decision to stay, but he wants to leave the club in a good position and heading off at the end of the Club World Cup would have given them the worst possible start to next year.