Burnley boss Sean Dyche admires Pep Guardiola's ambition at Manchester City

The Spaniard signed a new two-year contract at the Etihad Stadium last week to end months of speculation about his future.

Following discussions with chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak during the international break, with City languishing in 13th in the Premier League, Guardiola accepted that he had “unfinished business”.

City have won 181 of the 245 matches in which Guardiola has taken charge, and set records en route to winning the 2017-18 title with 100 points.

However, they finished 18 points adrift of Liverpool last season and have made a relatively slow start to this campaign with 12 points from the opening seven games.

Dyche said: “He’s certainly a top manager, deserving of the contract, I’m pretty sure of that!

“Fair play to him, congratulations to him, if I was £10m behind him, I think I’d be doing alright. And he deserves every penny of it!”

Guardiola’s Barcelona were a dominant force during his four-year reign, which started out with a La Liga, Copa del Rey and UEFA Champions League treble.

They would successfully defend their league title twice while going on to restore their status as European champions in 2011.

The former Spain international, who had been a part of Johan Cruyff’s ‘Dream Team’ at Camp Nou, ended his four-year Barcelona stint in 2012 with 14 honours, a club record

And he had been a serial winner at Bayern Munich where he won the Bundesliga in all three seasons that he was stationed in Bavaria.

“Here he’s had a couple of challenging seasons, but he’s been at top clubs, he knows the power of what they have at Man City, and the purchasing and developing power, so I’m sure he’s wise enough to make a decision on that basis,” said Dyche.

“Everywhere he’s had the best players, best teams and delivered and this one’s been slightly different.

“He’s had two seasons where it’s not gone their way and he has still signed a new contract to take it on.

“He’s not afraid to take on a challenge even when it’s not quite where he wanted it to be or not as maybe set up as it was before at Barcelona and Bayern.”