text: Txiki Begiristain was on the 10.30am Lufthansa flight out of Manchester for Munich on Tuesday morning. It’s the week of the Champions League quarter-finals, therefore the Manchester City director of football would have expected to be on the move. This week, however, just like last year, Begiristain is on the outside looking in. City succumbed meekly to Barcelona last month leaving him to plan his schedule only as a voyeur. The thought of Begiristain and his favourite coach, Pep Guardiola, in the same stadium as Bayern Munich attempt to turn over a 3-1 first leg deficit to Porto certainly provides some appropriate imagery. Guardiola is the man Begiristain would like to install at City in the summer of 2016. Manchester City are keen for Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola to become their new manager in 2016 . Guardiola cut a frustrated figure as he watched his  side lose 3-1 at Porto in the Champions League last week . Guardiola (right) speaks with midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger during Bayern's training session on Monday . The 44-year-old will come under more scrutiny if Bayern fail to overturn their quarter-final deficit on Tuesday . Despite winning the Premier League last season, City boss Manuel Pellegrini has come under-fire this term . City director of football Txiki Begiristain (left) and Guardiola enjoyed a successful relationship at Barcelona . These, however, are peculiar times for both men. Guardiola is facing his first Champions League exit prior to the semi-final stages of his coaching career and at the hands of relatively inconsequential opposition too. Begiristain, meanwhile, has a decision to make, along with the members of the City hierarchy, about their current manager Manuel Pellegrini. Certainly, Guardiola’s position is interesting. The Champions League – a competition he won twice in four seasons at Barcelona – is central to his identity. He has only ever lost ten matches in six seasons as a coach. Nevertheless, last season’s 5-0 aggregate dismantling at the hands of Real Madrid in the last four raised eyebrows in Bavaria. Bayern were the defending champions when he took over, after all. Now he faces even greater ignominy unless his injury-hit team can produce something special on Tuesday night, this in a week that has seen the club’s distinguished doctor Hans Muller Wohlfahrt walk out in protest at Guardiola’s methods and attitude. Such scrutiny, such criticism is relatively new to Guardiola, who is still only 44. Last week Bayern chief executive Karl Heinz Rummenigge refused to criticise Guardiola’s team. Previously, however, he had been scathing in his assessment of the Brazilian defender Dante, a player who performed horribly in Portugal last week and who Guardiola recommended for a new contract just last summer. None of this is helpful to a coach when he is trying to navigate the closing stages of a season that always asks big questions of teams and squad stretched by injuries and fatigue. In some ways, though, it may play in to City’s hands. Guardiola is facing his first Champions League exit prior to the semi-final stages of his coaching career . Last season’s 5-0 aggregate dismantling at the hands of Real Madrid is still raw in the minds of Bayern . Bayern  doctor Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt (centre) quit last week after a reported rift with Guardiola . Dante, Sebastian Rode, Lahm and Robert Lewandowski (L-R) trudge off the pitch after defeat in Porto . Guardiola – whose team are expected to clinch another Bundesliga title this weekend and are in the final of the German Cup – has only a year left on his contract at Bayern. It is, frankly, difficult to see him extending his stay. He wants to manage in the Barclays Premier League and though he has a fondness for London, the appeal of working with Begiristain and City chief executive Ferran Soriano after their successful time together at Barcelona is clear and understandable. Can City really afford to wait for him, though? With their own squad in need of radical work after the disappointments of this season’s dismal Barclays Premier League title defence, can they really ask Pellegrini to enter the final year of his own deal at the Etihad Stadium as a sitting duck coach? History tells us that managers who know they are leaving do not generally perform well in England. Sir Alex Ferguson attributed Manchester United’s disappointing 2001-02 season to his own publicly declared intention to retire – subsequently reversed – while this year West Ham’s form has fallen off a cliff after the club’s decision to not to renew Sam Allardyce’s contract this summer became clear. If City have real intentions to make up ground lost to Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea next season then they will need a playing squad driven and motivated fully. It is hard to see that happening if they are still playing for a man who cannot influence their careers beyond the month of May 2016. Guardiola only has a year left to run on his current contact at the Allianz Arena after this season . The ex-Barcelona boss is on course to win another Bundesliga title  and Bayern are in the  German Cup final . Having enjoyed success in first Spain, and now Germany, Guardiola's next destination is set to be England . City know all this, of course, but their options are limited. Patrick Vieira’s name has been mentioned as a short-term option. The club’s current academy head wants to manage and would like it to be at City, where is highly regarded by those who matter. Why, though, would City expect their first team players to work for an interim coach any more than they would a man, Pellegrini, who has, after all, won a Premier League and League Cup during his time in Manchester? It is, sadly, a conundrum, without a clear solution. A rather old school course of action would be for Begiristain to knock on Rummenigge’s door on Tuesday evening and offer Bayern an awful lot of money to buy out Guardiola from his contract at the end of this season. If Bayern go out of the Champions League on Tuesday, it may not cost City as much as they think. In football, timing is everything. Maybe it’s time for City to be brave. City's academy boss Patrick Vieira’s name has been mentioned as a short-term option to replace Pellegrini .
target: Bayern Munich trail Porto 3-1 in their Champions League quarter-final tie .
  Pep Guardiola's contract as Bayern manager expires in the summer of 2016 .
  Manuel Pellegrini's deal at Manchester City finishes at the same time too .