Not all football’s laws are framed by rules. During the interminable wait for the Premier League to decide the fate of Manchester City after their 130 charges, it appears something rather more prosaic is calling time on the Pep Guardiola era.
Empires often breach in much the same way, the erosion unseen, unrecognised until it is too late. Is that what we are seeing now? A team so used to winning, so high on its own strength and power, the feeling of success so deeply ingrained, that the very idea it might fail is unthinkable?
The defeat to Bodo/Glimt left that great symbol of City hegemony, Erling Haaland, a muted predator, without explanation for a result that pierced City’s armour in ways unimaginable when Pepball was the game’s peerless reference point.
Falls do not come much greater. The win was the first in the Champions League by Bodo, a tiny fishing port north of the Arctic Circle, and the first for any Norwegian team in the competition since 2007. The familiar metrics were all there, the dominance of possession, the greater number of shots, etc. Missing, however, was the eminence, the control, the unanswerable, big-dog power.
City were so shorn of aura and belief even before Rodri saw yellow twice in the space of 60 seconds, it triggered the notion that Guardiola’s end might be decided by forces unrelated to the impending ruling in the Premier League case against them.
Guardiola has always pegged his fate to City’s proclaimed innocence, maintaining the denials of any wrongdoing made by the Abu Dhabi ownership, however implausible that stance appeared when the charges were laid against them almost three years ago.
More than a year has passed since the case was heard at the end of 2024, a period during which the City hierarchy showed how secure they feel in their position by investing heavily in the squad. Guardiola has doubled down on his position, insisting he will see out the extension he signed on his contract until 2027.
In the absence of any tangible progress towards a resolution, a feeling has grown that City’s grip on power is immutable, that the heavily financed squad renewal would iron out uncharacteristic ripples and get the Guardiola machine rolling again.
Guardiola has run out of ideas (Photo: Getty)One night above the 66th parallel took an anvil to that view. The defeat was similar in feel to the thrashing at Old Trafford, Guardiola’s system abusing its sell-by date with inevitable consequences.
The eight straight victories with which City ended 2025 seem an epoch away. City have not won in the Premier League this year, returning just three points from 12. Though Guardiola was hampered by injuries, plus the unavailability of new signing Antoine Semenyo and Bernardo Silva, that does not account for the sense of drift as the Arctic night went away from them.
This feels more seismic than mission creep in the middle of a long season. City are not just off the pace but out of ideas, unable to address or contain the tactical shifts deployed by opponents who no longer accept their helplessness.
This collapse reprises the failings of last season when the Guardiola system began to creak significantly for the first time. The old certainties established via the agency of Kevin De Bruyne, Rodri, Bernardo Silva and peak Phil Foden are gone. Emboldened opponents have adapted to City’s rhythms, found a way to rise, and suddenly Guardiola does not have answers.
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His contribution to the game is already experiencing re-evaluation, another sign that the energy has moved on. In a withering recent appreciation Fabio Capello went full, hob-nailed catenaccio, accusing Guardiola of arrogance, of making changes in big games to prove his “genius”. He said his tiki-taka obsession produced robotic, sterile football, killed the vibe and stifled creativity.
Then up popped Bodo’s Kasper Hogh with two goals in two minutes, one a beauty, to total City for the second time in four days and leave a bemused Guardiola talking about fragility and the feeling that things are going wrong.
Now Wolves are on their way to the Etihad, unbeaten in January and fancying their chances. Whether they win or not is hardly the point. That victory for the Premier League’s bottom club is an idea with legs is the real worry for Guardiola, a coach weighing not only his team’s fallibility but his own.
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