Pep has wanted out plenty of times

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OffsideRuler

Community Member
Joined
Feb 25, 2025
Khaldoon saying Pep has tried to quit "100 times" is quite a line, even if it sounds like half joke, half truth. It does feel believable though, because some managers are all emotion and you can imagine him having plenty of moments where he's had enough.

At the same time, this is also just part of the Pep theatre now. Every few months there’s a fresh bit of drama, then he signs again and the whole thing rolls on. Man City have had the best of him for years, but clearly it has not always been smooth behind the scenes.

Interesting that Khaldoon says he never expected to stay this long either. Makes you wonder how much longer this really goes on, or whether one of these times actually is the real one.
 
It sounds dramatic, but it also fits the way Pep has always carried himself. He gives everything to the job, so it makes sense that he would have plenty of moments where he feels like walking away. That does not necessarily mean he was ever truly done.
 
If we're being honest the whole thing is so Pep though isnt it because every time theres a bit of pressure or the vibes go weird he acts like hes on the edge of throwing the whole job in the bin and then somehow its everyone else who has to calm him down, and the funny thing is people still talk about him like hes some zen mastermind when half the time he sounds like a bloke who has had enough and wants to disappear for a month, you can tell the club has to handle him carefully because if he is in that mood it probably affects everything, training, meetings, the lot, and honestly thats why I never buy the big speeches about loyalty and long term plans because with some managers its all emotion and mood swings and Pep is clearly one of them
 
Not even surprised honestly because he always comes across like someone who is constantly overthinking everything and if the job isnt perfect in his head then he probably does want to walk away, but then the next week hes back on it again and everyone acts shocked, proper rollercoaster that
 
This is why I never really trust the whole romantic version of football where a manager is meant to be some calm philosopher because Pep has always looked like a bloke who lives on the edge of a nervous breakdown and somehow turns that into trophies, and if Khaldoon is calling himself his psychiatrist then that tells you everything about the dynamic at City, they have basically built a whole support system around keeping him happy and keeping the machine going, which fair enough because it has worked, but it also makes all these quotes sound a bit mad when you step back and think about it, 100 times he wanted to quit apparently, 100 times he probably wanted to quit after a bad training session or one dodgy result or just because he was bored of hearing his own voice, and yet he stays and stays and signs again and again so at some point you have to say the club and the manager are just locked into this weird mutually dependent thing where nobody really wants the full ending until it actually happens and when it does it will probably be a massive mess anyway
 
The key bit is that he never expected to stay this long in the first place. Once a manager gets past his own internal timeline, every extra season becomes a negotiation with himself as much as with the club. That probably explains why the exit talk keeps coming back.
 
The officials never get enough blame in these conversations because if Pep is that on edge all the time then every decision, every stoppage, every little bit of nonsense on the touchline is going to wind him up even more and honestly the way refs are protected in this country is a joke, they let games drift, they bottle big calls, and then managers get painted as the problem when they react to the chaos in front of them, if someone is saying he wanted to quit 100 times then maybe part of that is because the standard of officiating around him is constantly testing everyone involved and you can see why he would be sick of it, same old story of people in black ruining the rhythm and then acting surprised when managers lose their head over it and nobody wants to talk about the actual root of the issue
 
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