Pep Guardiola looks on the bright side

• by Paul Kennedy  @pkedit, May 15, 2017

In Pep Guardiola's first season managing in England, Manchester City won't win a trophy and isn't assured even of finishing in the top four in the Premier League, but he's happy about one thing: he'll get a second chance.

"In my situation at a big club," he said on Monday. "I'm sacked. I'm out. If it is Barcelona and Bayern, you don't win and you are out. Here I have a second chance and I will try to do it better next season."

The closest Manchester City has come to winning this season is reaching the semifinals of the FA Cup, where it lost to Manchester United. Manchester City lost to Monaco in the round of 16 of the Champions League and exited the League Cup in the fourth round.

Guardiola was speaking ahead of Tuesday's makeup game against West Brom. Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal are fighting for the third and fourth spots in the Premier League and England's last two spots in next season's Champions League.

Guardiola won three La Liga titles and two Champions Leagues titles at Barcelona and three Bundesliga titles and two German Cup titles in his three seasons at Bayern, where his reign was viewed as something less than a success because of Bayern's failure to advance past the semifinals of the Champions League, which it had won in 2013 under retiring Jupp Heynckes.

Manchester City doesn't have the record of success of either of Guardiola's two previous clubs. Its only EPL titles came in 2012 and 2014 and its lone European crown was the old UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1970.

What Manchester City has is plenty of money. It spent more than $200 million last summer on the transfer market, and Guardiola should have plenty of money to spend this summer. Targets on the City transfer list include Arsenal's Alexis Sanchez, AC Milan keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma and Bayern Munich midfielder Joshua Kimmich.

Guardiola has the backing of City owner Sheikh Mansour and City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak but he admitted their patience won't last beyond next season.

“If next season is not going well," he said, "I’ll have one more year of contract and they are going to change the manager."