Pep Guardiola signed a two-year extension to his contract as Manchester City boss last month.
A sign that the Catalonian is very happy in his current position, in one sense, yet put another way, he hasn’t penned a four or five-year deal, which may well have been on the table for the person many see as the best manager in the world.
As such, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that Guardiola plans to have a sabbatical in 2025, after nine years in post and 12 in management, stretching back to his Bayern Munich tenure.
It is highly audacious to look this far in the future, and much can happen between now and then which would throw off course any current theories on succession.
One possible trajectory, however, is that Vincent Kompany wins the Championship title with Burnley this season, keeps them up comfortably in the Premier League in 2023-24 before recording a top half finish the following season.
By this point, the Belgian would have likely hit a glass ceiling with the Clarets and be keen to embark on his next chapter, while City may be prepared to take a chance on him with the managerial potential he’d have shown, combined with the added dimension of his history with the club.
Could this really happen? What sort of a fit would Kompany be, two-and-a-half years down the line?
