Pep Guardiola admits biggest regret on eve of Man City exit

By Damian Spellman, Press Association

Pep Guardiola has admitted his biggest regret at Manchester City is not giving England keeper Joe Hart the chance to prove himself.

The 55-year-old Spaniard, who takes charge of his final City match on Sunday against Aston Villa, sent Hart out on loan to Torino within weeks of his appointment before signing Claudio Bravo in 2016 and Ederson the following season.

Guardiola told Sky Sports: “I want to confess, I have regrets. When you take a lot of decisions, a lot, lot of decisions, you make mistakes.

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“But there is one regret that I have deep inside for many years, that I didn’t give a chance to Joe Hart to be with me to prove himself how good a keeper he was.

“I should have done, not because… all respect for Claudio, all respect for Ede who came in, they were important, but in that moment, I could have said, ‘Okay Joe, let’s try to do it together. If it doesn’t work, okay, we’ll change it’.

“But it happened. Life is sometimes… I have to take decisions and sometimes I’m not fair enough.”

He added: “Maybe with time then and learning… But I regret it from that time.

“In that moment, I said, ‘I believe in that’. Always I am stubborn in my decisions, when I believe in that. When I have doubts, I talk with people, but when I’m completely sure, 100 per cent, I say, ‘Guys, we have to do it in that way’, and I have been at a club that has supported me absolutely in everything with that.”

Guardiola admitted dealing with human emotions is one of the hardest parts of management, particularly with players who are not in the team, and insisted he had always tried to do that with “humanity and respect”.

He said: “If in that I failed, I do apologise, but it never, never was my intention or the intention of the club.”