According to reports from The Telegraph, manager Pep Guardiola sees Manchester United as his preferred next club should he decide to leave Bayern Munich at the end of the season.
The Spaniard is best famed for his prior spell at Barcelona, where he won three La Liga titles and two Champions League titles in the space of four years by molding the Catalans into one of the greatest possession sides the beautiful game has ever witnessed.
He has attempted to implement similar tiki-taka ideals onto the German giants since moving to the Allianz Arena in 2013. Although it has resulted in two years of dominance at domestic level, winning back-to-back Bundesliga titles and the 2014 DFB-Pokal, the ultimate prize of another Champions League honour has alluded the 44-year-old.
Bayern are desperate to extend Guardiola’s contract past the end of the season regardless, but his hesitation to sign has created great uncertainty in Bavaria. Club president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge wants the retired midfielder’s future decided by the new year, amid increasing concerns that Guardiola has one eye on the Manchester United job.
Sir Alex Ferguson approached Guardiola during his final season in charge of the Red Devils, but he never responded to the Scot’s offer of becoming his successor at Old Trafford and duly signed for Bayern instead. David Moyes took the helm and was later replaced by Louis van Gaal, whose contract will still have a year left to run when the Spaniard’s expires in the summer.
But there are still doubts over whether the Dutchman is the right man to lead United back to the glories of the Ferguson era and Guardiola represents similar ideals of possession-based football but in a younger and more modern form. It would be a relatively swift transition and van Gaal’s compensation fee of £7million is not seen as an issue by the club’s board.
The news will certainly be of disappointment to the Manchester City hierarchy. Despite consistently giving assurances over the future of current manager Manuel Pellegrini, they’ve often been reported as courting Guardiola – a gaffer who could make the Sheik owners’ dream of winning the club’s first ever Champions League title a reality – to the extent The Telegraph describe him as their ‘priority appointment’.
Citizens Director of Football Txiki Bergiristain worked briefly with Guardiola at Barcelona and is seen as a key figure in the club’s efforts to bring him to the Etihad, but the Bayern boss now appears to have his sights set on their local rivals instead.