Pep Guardiola's reign in Spain was coming to an end, according to all the signs In each of his three previous seasons Guardiola got rid of big name players at the end of the campaign. Samuel Eto'o was moved on after season one, Zlatan Ibrahimovic left after season two and last year forward Bojan Krkic was shown the door - less of a name than the previous two but a home-grown player who Barcelona fans had always believed would have a future at the club. Who would go this season? The answer looks like being the coach. If as it seems there will be a new manager at Barcelona next season, former player Ernesto Valverde, who has just quit Olympiakos after winning his third Greek Super League, is the favourite. Guardiola was never going to be Barca's Fergie - as much as the club he first served as a ball boy would want him to stay and knock Real Madrid off their perch. His character has him at times struggling with football's intensity. Barcelona's national team feel only adds to the stresses and strains. He was famously out with his wife, watching a three-hour play at a Barcelona theatre when Chelsea and Benfica were playing their quarter-final second leg. Preferring a three-hour modern Greek tragedy called Incendies to making plans to prevent the 180-minute footballing catastrophe that befell his side in the semi-finals. It was the action of a man who needed a rest. What kind of a rest? That will be the next question to be answered. Some supporters were last night still hoping for a last-minute change of heart. But on Wednesday morning, just hours after Barca's exit from the Champions League at the hands of Chelsea, the 41-year-old coach met club president Sandro Rosell, sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta, club vice president Josep Maria Bartomeu and assistant coach Tito Vilanova to discuss his future. In the three-hour meeting they failed to persuade him to commit beyond the end of his contract that runs out at the end of next month and today he is expected to sit alongside Rosell and make public that decision. Then he must decide if he needs a year away from football, as Frank Rijkaard did when he left in 2008, or if the Premier League can make for a change being as good as a rest. Chelsea and his other English suitors will hope he opts for the latter.