Pep Guardiola is in uncharted waters and under more pressure than ever
Part three of our week-long series examining how the 'Big Six' Premier League clubs are preparing for the new season. You can also read Jason Burt on how Chelsea signed Thiago Silva and Chris Bascombe on whether Liverpool's lack of signings should be cause for concern
Six months into Pep Guardiola’s second season at Manchester City, and with the club halfway towards their march to a first Premier League title under the Catalan and an unprecedented century of points, there was a clear consensus among the executives holding court over lunch in the Etihad Stadium’s salubrious Tunnel Club that December afternoon.
To their minds, the shortcomings and failures of the previous campaign - Guardiola’s first in English football - had proven the “best investment” they could have made because they helped to re-energise and refocus a coach who had previously only known success.
With Guardiola about to enter uncharted waters as he prepares for his fifth season at the same club for the first time in his managerial career, there are plenty at City hoping the acute disappointment of last season has the same sort of galvanising, recalibrating effect on the 49-year-old as that instructive, transitional debut campaign.
Guardiola has built serially successful squads before but he has not had to rebuild and remotivate one in the way he does now, a challenge that will attract even more scrutiny and pressure given how his aura, and that around his team, have been dented, and trust stretched, over a chastening past 12 months. A meek surrender of the Premier League title to Liverpool, behind whom they finished an eye-opening 18 points, was disappointment enough. But the manner as much as the timing of City’s exit from the Champions League felt particularly damaging, reputationally and psychologically. As such, City, and Guardiola, have a real point to prove, and they could not have asked for a much tougher start at a Wolves side who beat them home and away last season.
Last month’s dismal 3-1 quarter-final defeat to a Lyon side that finished a truncated Ligue 1 season in seventh position and were brushed aside 3-0 by the competition’s eventual winners, Bayern Munich, in the last four was, in many ways, the lowest point of Guardiola’s City reign. There were tactical and team selection errors en route to eliminations by Monaco, Liverpool and Spurs in the previous three seasons but, while the small army of sycophants who consider any criticism of Guardiola to be sacrilegious were content making excuses, the manager got it very wrong against Lyon and his players knew it.
It would be entirely wrong to say trust has been broken but faith in Guardiola’s approach to big games dwindled last season, when they lost three times to Manchester United, once to Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs and to Arsenal in the FA Cup semi-finals, before that Lyon debacle raised the most questions of the lot. Certainly, the concerns and frustrations raised privately by players to those close to them have become more frequent and opponents - while still very respectful and wary of City’s obvious threats - no longer seemed cowed in the way they did during those two stunning title winning campaigns. The fear factor, if not gone, has faded.
After three successive Champions League quarter-final defeats, and a Round of 16 exit to Monaco in his first year, Guardiola’s future is likely to become the subject of much sharper debate if that worrying trend repeats itself this time around. For all the money lavished on City’s squad, the blunt reality is Guardiola has still got no further in Europe with the club than David Moyes did in his 10 months in charge at Manchester United.
Whatever the future holds for Guardiola beyond this season, though, it is important the manager signs a contract extension soon. Having entered the final 10 months of his existing deal, the prospect of weekly debate about the manager’s future would be of benefit to no one at City, least of all the players whom Guardiola must again convince to rally behind him as they bid to wrest the title back from Liverpool and finally make substantive gains in Europe.
New faces should help in that regard. Lionel Messi will not form part of the rebuild after the Argentina maestro opted to at least see out the final year of his contract at Barcelona which, on the upside, will spare Guardiola an even more intense spotlight.
But City have already drafted in the Spain winger, Ferran Torres, as Leroy Sane’s replacement and the Holland defender, Nathan Ake, from Bournemouth and others will follow. The priority remains a pedigree centre-half to play alongside Aymeric Laporte. The pursuit of Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly has been far from straight-forward but City hope to get a deal over the line. Left back is also a problem position and City could yet bring in another forward as Guardiola bids to address the fault lines at both ends of the pitch, even if he needs a big season from his first choice midfield pivot, Rodri.
Guardiola will certainly hope the departure of David Silva does not prove as costly as Vincent Kompany leaving did last season, the latter’s exit compounded by the loss of Laporte for five months through injury. Silva going has cleared the way for Phil Foden to assume a bigger role but the England midfielder’s behaviour in Iceland over the weekend was a most unwelcome distraction for Guardiola and a stark reminder of how much the youngster still has to learn.
Leadership on the pitch could yet be an issue. Guardiola needs Sergio Aguero, who missed the final two months of the season through injury, to stay fit for the last year of his contract and Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling to elevate their games once again.
In turn, they will want to see Guardiola keep up his end of the bargain. An intriguing season for City and their manager awaits.
