Did you pave the way for Pep Guardiola at Manchester City?
I knew before I signed they wanted Pep Guardiola. [Sporting director] Txiki [Begiristain] and [chief executive] Ferran Soriano had worked with him at Barcelona.
They talked with me three or four months before and said they were going for Pep, but if Pep wasn’t going to be their coach, I was.
Pep then went to Bayern Munich. I worked there for three years and changed the style of [Roberto] Mancini, which is what they wanted, and they were successful.
It is not the same Manchester City as it is today. In the first year we bought players, but in the second we couldn’t improve the team because we had a Uefa punishment. The third year we improved with Raheem Sterling and Kevin de Bruyne.
After that, Manchester City continued investing a lot of money in good players to get a better team. Maybe today, with Real Madrid, they are one of the two best teams in the world.
I didn’t have a problem to leave. I knew they would continue growing because they are very ambitious and know how to develop football.
When you work with Txiki and Ferran, you know they will not fire you because of a couple of results. I knew I would finish my contract. They give you a lot of security.
The club continued to grow and is still growing. After I had important offers – especially in Italy – but for different reasons I couldn’t do it. Three years in Manchester was enough.
What are your thoughts about City’s Premier League charges?
I am sure the fans of Manchester City are really happy with the way the club works and the way they play and the trophies they have won during all these years.
Always you have criticism about a lot of things.
How was life at West Ham?
Coming back to England with West Ham was maybe not my best decision, but I did it because I wanted to return to the Premier League.
The first season was not bad. But the club was exactly the opposite of Manchester City. They had two or three bad moments and they wanted to change the manager.
They knew I left a lot of things to go to West Ham. I had a contract in China. I changed a lot of things. The aspiration to fight for better started in the first year I was there. They invested more money.
For different reasons you can have bad moments. But in that moment, as a manager, you must be sure the owners will continue. They did so many things for me to go to West Ham, but the first thing that went wrong, they sacked me. That is not the style of club that I like.
The West Ham fans are unbelievable – 50,000 every game with the passion for the team. I have no complaints about the fans because they were always with me.
Looking back, when I finished in China, if I waited a little bit more I could have had another club. But West Ham were keen and convinced me.
What motivates you to keep coaching?
When you achieve what a club needs to achieve, that is success. I can’t pretend I can win La Liga or the Champions League with Betis, but we have had four successful years.
When we won the cup [Copa del Rey], it was unbelievable – 300,000 people on the streets.
I worked for Malaga. They had the most successful seasons in their history. When we lost to Borussia Dortmund [in the Champions League quarter-finals] there were 5,000 people at the airport waiting for the team at 4am.
I worked at Villarreal, exactly the same. If you want to win titles there it will be difficult, but if you want the best season in the history of the club, you must be very satisfied.
