Pep Guardiola returns to Manchester City: Legendary former boss attends PSG clash after insisting he will ‘always be behind’ former club following Premier League’s bombshell cheating verdict

DAILYMAIL.COM • 1h ago

By OLLIE LEWIS, SPORTS DIGITAL EDITOR 20:08 14 Oct 2026, updated 20:21 14 Oct 2026

Pep Guardiola has returned to Manchester City for the first time since his emotional farewell in the summer, with his former club marooned in the biggest scandal in English football history.

The Spaniard, who won six Premier League titles during his ten-year stint in Manchester, threw his support behind his former side as they took on Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

Guardiola was sat in Manchester City’s directors’ box for the tie, seated two rows behind chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and chief executive Ferran Soriano.

The 55-year-old has been replaced by Enzo Maresca, with the new boss now having to contend with the explosive fallout of the Premier League bombshell verdict, in which City have been found guilty of the vast majority of the 115 charges against them.

The era covering the charges – from 2009 to 2018 – laid the foundations for Guardiola’s huge success at the Etihad Stadium, and has called into question the legendary manager’s legacy as a result.

City have strenuously denied any wrongdoing and have launched an appeal against the verdict, while Guardiola took to Instagram in the wake of the findings to publicly back his former club.

‘I want every single Manchester City fan across the world to know I am here; more than ever. I am, always have been, always will be behind my club, my owner, my chairman, Ferran, the players, staff, Enzo and you, our unique supporters.

‘Let me be clear: we will get through this together.

City received an overwhelmingly positive reception in their first match back at the Etihad following the seismic verdict, with supporters rallying around the club despite the sheer volume of charges found against the Premier League leaders.

Prior to kick-off, Man City fans created a tifo reading ‘CTID’, meaning ‘City ’til I die’.

Maresca’s side were treated to an altogether more hostile welcome by Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday, in their first competitive fixture since the guilty findings.

But the visitors rode the early storm to run away with a convincing 3-0 victory, with their jubilant celebrations the subject of criticism from the watching football world.

Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki all scored in the space of 13 second-half minutes, with wild scenes in front of an exuberant away end.

Maresca danced down the touchline and stuck fingers in his ears, with staff and players branded arrogant by their detractors.

Maresca hit back at critics before their Champions League tie against Paris Saint-Germain at the Etihad.

‘Criticised for what?’ he said. ‘We won 3-0 at Anfield! What do you want us to do? And even if it was 0-1, it would be exactly the same.

‘I’m here today, and the players are here today, to win tomorrow’s game. And we work every day to win games. It’s the only thing, again, that we can think and be focussed.

‘The rest? It’s just things from outside that we need to deal with, but we were so, so, so happy inside the pitch, and you cannot imagine inside the changing room.’

Maresca added: ‘We were very happy, sharing time with our fans. Probably it’s been more tough for our fans than our players or for me.

‘It’s more complicated for them because if I am an Arsenal fan or Utd fan, I look at City fans and say ‘hey my friend, you are a cheat’. Inside the changing room we were very happy because we knew how difficult Anfield is. Anfield was unbelievable.’

City skipper Ruben Dias stood behind Maresca’s words – and claimed they will continue to celebrate with passion.

‘We’ll celebrate however we feel in the moment,’ Dias said. ‘It’ll be a show of how much things mean to us.

‘Yes there is a lot of noise and it’s almost impossible to not see something – even us being so private. But I feel like we’re also very good at focusing on ourselves.

‘You build yourself against any kind of noise. I feel like I speak for the whole group when I say we’re very calm. We trust the club. We know the team we’ve got and want to win. It’s the same noise as before because people don’t love us.’

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