This is the end of Man City as we know it ...Middle East

“He changed world football,” Xavi Hernandez said in a Sky Sports documentary when Pep Guardiola was appointed as Manchester City manager. Xavi was one of the defining players of his generation at Barcelona and perhaps the ultimate Guardiola disciple: he knew.

“He did not just change Barcelona, he changed world football,” Xavi continued, smiling. “And I think he is one of the few people who can change English football too.”

Points spectacularly proven, in every place you look. The impact at the top of English football, where Guardiola’s Manchester City usually sat, is patently obvious. And then you watch Newport County pass the ball around the back on a bitter November night, concede a goal doing it and the universality of the Guardiola effect is reinforced.

It’s easy to forget that that legacy was not always guaranteed. Guardiola arrived in England having produced brilliance but grew weary at Barcelona and failed to win the Champions League with Bayern Munich. There was a faint whiff of “Our league” exceptionalism to greet him. Guardiola’s “I don’t coach tackling” line sparked a cavalcade of snorts and shaken heads. This guy doesn’t even get English football, Jeff!

Then, the nonsense accusation was that Guardiola only took on easy projects. Risible: elite football is an extraordinarily pressurised working environment, and one in which few thrive and even few thrive for years on end. If Guardiola chose to manage elite clubs, it is because those in power at those clubs considered him to be the best in the business at managing those pressures with a monastic commitment to tactical expertise that allowed his players to flourish.

It turned out Guardiola did get English football and bent it to his own will when needed. The notion that rampant, repeated success was inevitable is obvious only in hindsight. That is what the best do: normalise exceptional performance until exceptional becomes expectation.

Never before had an English team won four straight league titles. Never before had an English team taken 100 points in a top-flight season. Never before had a manager stayed so long at a club and won a higher percentage of their matches. Whatever the result of the 115 charges case and City’s squad-building during that period, it barely alters Guardiola’s brilliance in every aspect.

And when greatness steps aside, it leaves a hole many times the size of their physical frame. The 115 charges become of even greater relevance. Depending upon the result of that case and how the saga then unfolds, Manchester City could be thrown further backwards.

This matters at a club that, with respect, has got plenty wrong. The ticket price rises that froze out sections of a loyal, local fanbase started before Guardiola’s time but his success became a robust argument for avarice. If that all falls away, City will count the cost in empty seats and it will be an issue entirely of their own making. The Harry Kane club, as Guardiola once called Tottenham Hotspur – did this not deliberately become the Pep Guardiola club?

There has clearly been some future-proofing. Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi were landmark arrivals in January. Rayan Cherki and Abdukodir Khusanov came before them and are still only 22. City have the fifth youngest starting XI in the Premier League this season, 12 months on from having the sixth oldest. Erling Haaland will likely be the fourth longest-serving player next season. That reflects an internal understanding that Guardiola wouldn’t stay forever.

Enzo Maresca too is proof of evolution chosen over revolution. Ordinarily we would need to take care on this point, but Maresca literally told reporters that he had twice spoken to City when under contract at Chelsea. Maresca was in the dugout when City won the Champions League final in 2023 and is a student of the Guardiola tactical school. It is a grab at a business-as-usual short-term future.

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But that in itself is highly risky. Moving away from Guardiola would be a mighty wrench but it would at least allow the replacement to be their own person, a defined cut-off point where one era ends and another begins. To attempt replication without an exact replica is dangerous because it allows easy comparison and contrast. “Weird,” a player’s subconscious flashes – “Pep didn’t do it quite like that.”

But then nobody else ever has. Guardiola is one of the great pillars of modern management, a reputation and personality so all-encompassing that City built the church from which he preached. Few inside the club expected him to stay so long. Nobody is sorry that he did and nobody will feel happier without him.

And now a dynasty must be rebuilt, if that’s even possible and with other uncertainties swirling around Manchester City. Certainty is no more. English football will deeply miss Guardiola, although supporters of those clubs unfortunate to collide into him may disagree today. City will miss him more. Nothing will ever quite be the same again.

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