Pep hints at longer City stay
Paul Hirst
The Manchester City manager Pep
Guardiola has spoken for the first time
about the possibility of extending his
contract beyond the end of next season.
Guardiola, whose City side host
Liverpool tomorrow in a top-of-the-
table clash, dismissed the claim that he
is set to take over as the Brazil head
coach after this winter’s World Cup.
When asked about being linked with
the Brazil job in an article first pub-
lished in Marca on Thursday, Guardiola
said: “I’m under contract here, I’m so
happy here. I’m not staying forever but
I would stay forever. There cannot be a
better place to be. I [could] extend the
contract ten years but I will not. Now is
not the moment [to talk about it].”
The 51-year-old Catalan, who joined
the club in 2016, is out of contract at the
end of the 2022-23 campaign. He is
settled in Manchester and has never
spent so long as manager at one club.
He has an excellent working rela-
tionship with the club’s chairman
Khaldoon Al Mubarak, the director of
football Txiki Begiristain and Ferran
Soriano, the chief executive.
Guardiola, whose side are one point
ahead of Liverpool, was full of praise for
his opposite number, Jürgen Klopp.
The two have fought for domestic titles
in England and Germany, when the
pair were in charge of Bayern Munich
and Borussia Dortmund respectively.
“He is the biggest rival I have ever
had in my career,” Guardiola said. “Jür-
gen makes world football a better place
to live. We spoke together in Germany
about my admiration for what he does
and the way his teams play.”Guardiola gave Klopp a playful dig in
the ribs over statements he has made
about how difficult it is to compete
against a club with City’s financial
muscle.
When asked if he would have a glass
of wine with Klopp after the match,
Guardiola said with a smile: “If we win
I’d love it. I’ll invite him in. He’s a good
guy and I don’t have any problems with
him, absolutely not. And he’s said many
times that we’re a rich club so the wine
will be perfect, high quality.”
When asked about the latest allega-
tions from Der Spiegel that the club vio-
lated financial regulations, Guardiola
said: “I don’t know. You know my opin-
ion on what happened in the past, how
close and how supportive I am of every-
one in the club because I know the
reality, but I cannot control where it
[money] comes from.”Hamilton admits his team
cannot improve failing car
Rebecca Clancy
Formula One CorrespondentA despondent Lewis Hamilton admit-
ted that the changes Mercedes have
made to their car have made no differ-
ence to its performance.
The seven-times world champion,
who is 29 points adrift of Ferrari’s
Charles Leclerc after only two races,
was 13th fastest in the second practice
session in Melbourne. He and his team-
mate George Russell face another
difficult weekend after no significant
upgrades were made by the team.
“It was a difficult session,” Hamilton,
37, said after the second practice ses-
sion. “Nothing you change on the car
makes a difference at the moment;that’s the difficult thing. You get very
optimistic, you make changes and it
doesn’t seem to want to improve. You’re
trying to push and even when you do a
decent lap, it’s 1.2 seconds down [on the
fastest cars], so it’s just difficult.”
Mercedes, the winners of each of the
past eight constructors’ titles, have
struggled with their car this season
after the introduction of new regula-
tions. They are particularly struggling
with porpoising — the violent bounc-
ing of the car on straights — and the
only way to resolve the problem so far
has been to raise the ride height of the
car, which is at the expense of speed.
Russell said that along the sweeping,
curved section of the Albert Park
Circuit his car had the worst porpoising
he had ever experienced.Sp or t
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