Pep Guardiola’s Still In The Middle Of A Manchester City Overhaul
Oh so you thought that Pep Guardiola was just gonna waltz on in and immediately win everything with Manchester City? (Actually: yes, I did). Like he did at Barcelona and Bayern Munich? (Okay I get it, I'm embarrassed about that). Yeah… that probably wasn’t gonna happen. (Sure, rub it in why dontcha).
Guardiola’s genius as a manager has been the way he’s been able to arrange and organise the best players in the world into a system that allows them to flourish. With Barca it was tiki taka on the backs and brains of Xavi and Iniesta, feeding into Lionel Messi. Ultra-high possession rates and a heavy pressing defence like you can do when you control the ball for 70% of the game. When he got to Bayern that had to change a bit without those three legends but that team still boasted some outrageous talent.
Now with City he’s having to adapt again. Days after getting bundled out of the Champions League on away goals, a late Sergio Aguero leveller salvaged them a point in a 1-1 draw with Liverpool (a really good game, too). Guardiola said it was “one of the happiest days of [his] life”. They’re 12 points back on Chelsea in the league and have an FA Cup semi-final coming up soon against Arsenal. That’s where we’re at right now.
The Premier League is a little quicker and more physical than Spain or Germany. That doesn’t mean better, it just means different and Pep has clearly been open to mixing things up. But even though City had been paving the way for him years in advance, they themselves probably overestimated what his effect would be too. While City made a Champions League semi-final last season under Manny Pellegrini, they did so with a squad that was already past its best before. Those guys are all a year older now. In the last two summer windows they’ve brought in a fair selection of young and exciting players but you scan over that squad and there’s still a huge imbalance – they’re stuck between two eras.
Think back to City’s first taste of domestic splendour, Sergio Aguero scoring that iconic injury time winner. A first league title for 43 years. People always recall the last weekend of that season, the last minute even, but that 2011-12 City team also won their last six league games in a row scoring 18 goals including wins over Man United and Newcastle (who’d finish fifth) in the process. They were superb. They were clutch. They were deserving winners.
Here are the top ten players in games started during that 2011-12 campaign (all competitions):
- Joe Hart – 50
- David Silva – 46
- Vincent Kompany – 42
- Yaya Toure – 41
- Joleon Lescott – 40
- Sergio Aguero – 39
- Gareth Barry – 39
- Samir Nasri – 37
- Gael Clichy – 35
- Micah Richards – 31
Five years later and all but three of those players are still in the current team, funnily enough those three being three of the four Englishmen. Hart and Nasri are out on loan and unlikely to play again for City but when Pep took over they were there. He was working with those guys in preseason. And you can also include Aleksandar Kolarov and Pablo Zabaleta who played smaller roles in that title winning team. There’s nothing wrong with getting longevity from great players – the main point here is that this is not Pep’s squad, it’s Roberto Mancini’s. Well, half of it anyway.
Flip forward two more seasons to when they won again and there were most of the same fellas doing the business again. No worries there, that was a great squad and they were always competitive with the best (except in the Champions League). The problem is that they never really injected anything into it. That group of players was milked for several years without much evolution (other than in the manager’s seat) and only when the Guardiola thing rounded the corner towards happening did they realise they needed to keep on improving if they were gonna hold off the challenges of Chelsea and company.
You can look at Kevin de Bruyne and Raheem Sterling as players bought with Pep Guardiola in mind. Not so much Fabian Delph (bought with homegrown roster spots in mind) or Nic Otamendi (an immediate fix for a defence that’d gotten very leaky with Kompany’s regular injuries). At the same time they started to offload all those strikers that they’d hoarded. That second title winning City teams loved a four-forward rotation of Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko, Alvaro Negredo and Stevan Jovetic. Three of them were sold ahead of/during Pellegrini’s last season (two on initial loans that became permanent). Oh that’s right, Pep’s the manager who made the false nine popular.
Then as Pep showed up he took a good look at what he had and eventually made a few critical additions. John Stones and Leroy Sane were bought for big bucks, Gabriel Jesus had a transfer arranged for January, Ilkay Gundogan and Nolito supplied more proven worth and Claudio Bravo came in to keep goal. Well, Jesus and Gundogan had their seasons ended by injury and Bravo made an erratic enough start to his City career that he’s since been dropped for Willy Caballero.
That was the team that fell 3-1 to Monaco, going out of the Champions League in the first knockout round. Watching them play you could see the framework of what they might become. Kevin de Bruyne’s vision is magnificent, David Silva creates space as well as ever, Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane bring pace and directness while Sergio Aguero remains an absolute master of a centre forward. But they’re inconsistent. Sometimes they’re on and sometimes they aren’t. Aguero and KDB didn’t have great games against Monaco. Fernandinho is a wonderful holding midfielder however he’s got a tough task cleaning up for some of the possession that they squander.
As for the defence, three of those players are well over the age of 30 and none of those three are guarantees to still be there next season. Yet Clichy, Kolarov and Sagna all found themselves starting in the most important game of the season. Given that Guardiola’s experimented with some funky fullback play this season, those are areas of the squad they can’t afford not to strengthen. They were two goals up against Monaco and all Guardiola could talk about in the lead in was how they needed to score if they were gonna progress. Pep’s not the best defensive boss but he’s no mug either. He didn’t trust that quartet to keep Monaco out. John Stones is notoriously prone to the odd moment of inexperience while the other three all fall in that category of ‘past their best before’. The worrying thing is he doesn’t have too many other options.
Which is why you have to look at this team like a half-finished portrait. The outlines are there and it’s been filled in on a few corners but there’s a lot more work to be done yet. It’s better to take your time with a squad overhaul, especially with a new manager, just ask Jurgen Klopp. You buy 10-15 new players for the first team and they’re all learning from scratch, it’d be a shambles. Get a season under the belt with the team as it is and make the necessary moves once the foundations are in place. For a manager heavy on philosophy like Guardiola is, it makes sense.
Hence also why the rumours are coming out now about a massive squad overhaul in the summer. Right now they’re missing a midfield and most of a defence and that imbalance is easy to see when you watch them play. Considering their manager, their club reputation and the blank cheques that they’ll have at their disposal, Manchester City should have no difficulties finding the players to suit what they want to do. Two new fullbacks, at least one central defender, a couple midfielders, a striker, a winger or two… probably a goalkeeper as well. The list is a long one and with that level of resource there’s not much point speculating who they target, suffice to say that if Alexis Sanchez demands out of Arsenal there’s a team that’d be perfect for him a few hours north. (If not, they could do worse than to look at the Monaco team that put six past them in 180 minutes).
Even more dramatic is gonna be who Guardiola gets rid of. Yaya Touré, Gaël Clichy, Pablo Zabaleta, Willy Caballero, Jesús Navas and Bacary Sagna have all been long term servants for the Sky Blues. Zabby and Yaya have each played over 200 times in the Premier League while Clichy and Navas have played well over 100, Sagna has played 50+ and Caballero is the current number one goalie. All six of them are off contract after this season and while letting over 600 PL appearances walk at once sounds drastic, there also isn’t much justification for keeping many of them on. Meanwhile Joe Hart, Eli Mangala, Samir Nasri and Wilfried Bony are all out on loan without much chance of cracking the first team. Plus Nic Otamendi, Fernando and Fabian Delph’s absences in the Monaco second leg were, erm… notable.
To be honest, the only two Mancini Citizens that seem to fit the Peppery are Sergio Aguero and David Silva and Aguero might well want to leave after this season anyway. Every player that leaves will probably need to be replaced. We’re in the eye of the hurricane right now, we’re in the middle of the Pep Revolution.
Even after getting knocked out of the Champions League, City still have themselves that Cup semi coming up and they’re a good shot at finishing second (or sixth) in the league. There’s a lot to play for over the next couple of months and if your name isn’t De Bruyne, Fernandinho, Sterling, Silva, Stones or Sane then a place in the squad next season and is certainly part of that. In the meantime it’s easy to criticise Guardiola for not fitting into the English game, calling him a fraud or whatever. Just bear in mind he’s working on the long game here with half a squad.
In hindsight, calling on them to win the league immediately (again as I did, whoops) was silly. Antonio Conte can come in and make a couple major additions to what was already largely a title-winning squad and (re)turn them into the best team in England. Pep Guardiola had a lot more to do than that – the title winners he had were mostly beyond their peak. But give him a few more months and £150m and you’d be crazy not to fear what Manchester City might become.