Pep Guardiola is likely to step down as Manchester City manager this weekend – what to ask a manager who has been asked everything? | football news

If I could ask Pep Guardiola one last question, what would it be?

It’s not something I still know the answer to, despite months of preparation for his potential departure this summer, and now face the reality of having just one final pre-match press conference with the Spaniard as Manchester City manager.

I can’t even begin to think about how many questions I’ve already had since Pep’s arrival.

Often with four press conferences a week around matches, a fair few sit-down interviews and very occasional (and very brief) chats when the cameras are off, the numbers must be in the thousands.

I can be more certain of the number of times he told me ‘good’ questions, though I could add them up on the fingers of one hand.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve probed him on almost every topic imaginable, met with varying degrees of success, and there have been many occasions when he’s managed to express his displeasure at my line of questioning.

A few years into his tenure Man City agreed that we could use our ‘host broadcast’ access to get a live interview with Pep straight after the press conference, and I distinctly remember an incident where he asked the press officer if he couldn’t do it and could take the fine instead (even though it would have cost him around £20,000).

The press officer convinced him to stay and talk to us after the commercial break but it became a running joke among the Manchester press pack about how much he disliked me – even if it wasn’t entirely true.

Over time he has become more comfortable with the English media in general and understands our obsession with the passion of the game above all else.

The laughs became more frequent, the jokes more inclusive, the self-deprecation felt more sincere.

As much as Pep has learned to play in front of audiences in the media theater at the club’s training ground, he is always incredibly bright and engaging one-on-one.

His eyes lit up recently when I ended an interview by asking him about his memories of playing at the old Wembley and helping Barcelona win their first European Cup in 1992.

In fact he is never far from training as a child at La Masia, dreaming of one day lifting trophies for the famous Barcelona. You get a similar twinkle when you ask him about his mentor Johan Cruyff, or what it was like working with Lionel Messi or a young Phil Foden.

It’s really hard to imagine walking into the first press conference of next season and not sitting in the pep chair. His legacy is visible around Manchester City, from the tally of trophies to the pictures on his teams walls celebrating their many titles.

The club feels almost unfamiliar, even from the one he joined in 2016, let alone relegated from the Premier League 25 years ago this month.

He has more than doubled the total number of trophies won in the club’s 10-year history, starting with their first FA Cup in 1904. This is an incredible statistic in itself, before considering all the records he has broken in English football.

There hasn’t been anything in the last decade that Pep hasn’t been asked at one point or another so finding something original to ask him on the final day could be quite a stretch. Professionally, I enjoyed the back and forth with him – although I would refrain from asking him about transfers as it was always guaranteed to turn him off.

Maybe I’ll ask him how he really feels about all of us in the media and whether he loves us now as much as we came to love him.

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