Guardiola "quit 100 times" before final exit, says Man City chairman

MANCHESTER, England, June 4 : Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has revealed Pep Guardiola "quit 100 times" during a decade at the club before leaving at the end of the season, drawing a line under one of the most successful managerial reigns in English football.

In a wide-ranging interview with City's in-house media, Al Mubarak said Guardiola repeatedly half-heartedly flirted with leaving over the years, only to be persuaded to continue - until the moment he knew the decision was final.

"Inevitably over these last 10 years we've had a lot of ups and some downs. And in the downs, he must have quit 100 times," Al Mubarak said.

"There's the story as you all know, 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf.' In the case of Pep, when he says I quit, it doesn't mean he's quitting. You don't take it that seriously, you have to manage him.

"I always had a very clear understanding with Pep, because of that analogy of the 'Boy Who Cried Wolf': whenever he quits I will always convince him to come back until the time where I know it's actually the real moment Pep decides actually it's time.

"There's the moments that are not real and he actually needs someone to bring him back. And there was always going to be one moment where it was going to be real."

Al Mubarak said that as well as becoming close friends with Guardiola he was also the Spaniard's pseudo "psychiatrist", pulling him back from the brink in the down times.

Guardiola's threats to quit finally became real this season, Al Mubarak said, bringing to a close a 10-year tenure he described as "exceptional."

"We reached that, and I knew it and that's why I didn't fight it," he said. "In this particular (moment), I think he knew, and I knew that he knew ... I did not fight this at all because