Pep Guardiola: The Game-Changer

Pep Guardiola: The Game-Changer

Pep Guardiola’s arrival in England was surrounded by expectation and hyperbole from both rivals and supporters of Manchester City. Weighed down by an enviable record of success and a ready-made list of issues for detractors. For every achievement, a negative take. For every possibility, a reason why it couldn’t work. Not with the style of the Premier League. Not with the way we do things in this country.

It’s easy to forget now how the naysayers swelled in numbers by the end of his first season at City. Some of the most vocal wore sky blue and became ever more nostalgic for more recent managers. There was a vibe that Bobby Manc got City in a way Pep couldn’t. He was too stubborn. His brand of football couldn’t work in the Premier League. Third place and some telling defeats. Replacing the much-loved Joe Hart with Claudio Bravo because the new ‘keeper could play out from the back. Unfortunately, he spent too much time retrieving the ball from the back of his net. Hart had been offered to stay on, develop, but knew the writing was on the wall.

What no one appreciated – and it was demonstrated many times with multiple players – it takes time for people to adapt to Pep’s method. To understand what he needs. To implement the change and grow into it. Season one was not a mini-failure, it was an excavation. Discovering the elements that he could use for the new football he was bringing.

Any style of football can be called out in a reductive fashion. To say City played with a high line and were always vulnerable, that playing out from the back was risky and boring, is an oversimplification. It misses the minutiae that goes on to make Treble Winners, Centurions, Four-in-a-Row Titles, and twenty trophies in ten years. 

But people can be forgiven for losing faith and after the first year in the Premier League, the voices claiming his style wouldn’t work in England started to sound more plausible. Or at the very least, they may have had a point. What those people didn’t appreciate was the Guardiola process. His method. The immediate understanding and absorption of information, the meticulous attention to all possible solutions, the never-ending crafting of the final product. It takes players time to get on Pep’s wavelength.

Notably more players left the Etihad in his first season than were recruited. Of those, only John Stones and İlkay Gündogan had notable sustained careers. Both became better players under Pep’s instruction.

The second season was a concentrated net spend of £200M. Ederson erased the Bravo blot on Pep’s record. Benjamin Mendy and Kyle Walker solved the full back issue. The now irreplaceable Bernardo Silva joined Mendy from Monaco (thankfully, he didn’t join him at parties) and the students from the previous season saw all the pieces fall into place.

How do you silence the naysayers from twelve months previous?

Become The Centurions.

Suddenly no one was mocking about being “tippy tappy”. It wasn’t boring. 100 points in a single season can never be understated. Nor can 106 league goals. It was proof that Guardiola’s philosophy could work on these shores. And with it, a seed was planted. Where there was once doubt, there were open minds.

As the (full) saying goes: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

Slowly at first – then so quickly teams from League Two to Sunday League were trying it – everyone was trying to play from the back. High defensive lines were okay. Goalkeepers, even Dave from the Dog and Duck, were being turned into ball playing sweeper-keepers. With varying degrees of success.

The greatest teams of all time never exist in isolation. To raise levels, you need a worthy opponent. Someone who appears relentless in their pursuit as you stand on top of the mountain. One iteration of Pep’s City teams is the best Premier League side of all time. The debate is which team from which season. This wouldn’t be the case without Klopp’s Liverpool.

The Merseyside club under the German raised the bar higher than had been seen before in England. Jürgen’s Heavy Metal Football was seen as the antidote to Pep’s patient possession. They hit 97 points in the 2018-19 season. Good enough to win the league any normal year.

Except, Liverpool were up against a team that was anything but ordinary. City won the final fourteen league games, finishing on 98 points. It revealed the resilience and ruthlessness that was installed into the club’s DNA. This became the new Typical City.

Not before a reset was required.

In his first three seasons, Pep could be seen as a Missionary for his style of play. The Centurions and the run-in with Liverpool delivered his gospel. What followed were the years where he became a true controller. His previous managerial stints had been short in nature. After finishing a point above Liverpool, he surrendered the title to Klopp the following year.

It was a true transitional phase. Not just the loss of Vincent Kompany – immortalised forever, signing off with the goal against Leicester the previous season – but David Silva’s last year in a City shirt. Cancelo was recruited and so was a player called Rodri.

It was the year Covid changed the world and football didn’t escape. One where the sharp focus on City in the Champions League was harsher than ever. If you can’t fairly criticise what Guardiola has achieved, the only avenue left is to remind everyone what he hasn’t done. The defeat to Lyon – a Champions League game played over one leg because of Covid – drove the new narrative: he’s too clever for his own good.

But equally, because of the league performance, not that clever because he’d been worked out. This time, his style wouldn’t work in England. Yeah, yeah, people jumped the gun after the first season and called it too early. Then there was The Centurions and pipping Liverpool. But this time, really, no doubts: Pep was cooked and out of his depth. 

So he went on to win four Premier League titles in a row. An accomplishment never seen before in England.

Transition became a state of permanent flux. If anyone thought they could solve Pep, he was already dreaming up the next system. He’s playing 4D chess while everyone else is learning tic-tac-toe.

Managers who thought they knew City patterns were faced with a colder machine. When it looked like City desperately required a striker, Pep won the league with a false 9. People spending time working out that conundrum looked up to see the most un-Pep player in Erling Haaland sign with the club. Suddenly, City are more direct.

The Missionary became The Great Adapter. 

He picked up a domestic treble in the process — first English club to do so. The Holy Grail of the Champions League was secured — as part of a Premier League and FA Cup treble. It makes City the only English side to win the Continental Treble (Premier League, FA Cup, and European Cup) as the reigning champions of England. A FIFA Club World Cup, a Super Cup, what felt like an annual League Cup. The trophies became synonymous with the pairing of Pep and City.

Kevin De Bruyne became arguably the best in the world as he peaked. Rodri recognised as such when he won the Ballon d’Or.

Those who said Pep’s football was boring when he arrived, were now just bored of watching him dominate English football.

When it’s hard to argue with the results, detractors have turned to the low-hanging fruit. The most obvious being the financial spend, which neatly leads them to the 115 charges. The Covid season saw City initially found guilty by UEFA and subsequently cleared by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Yes, there’s no doubt Pep has spent money when required.

It didn’t seem such a sin when Alex Ferguson signed Rio Ferdinand for £29.1M in 2002. Adjusted using CPI, that’s about £61.5M – but – football stands outside of regular inflation. The TV deal for the Premier League during that cycle was £1BN over three seasons. The clubs currently share a £6.7BN pot. Marc-Israel Guéhi seems like a real bargain.

Buying the league was romanticised when Jack Walker did it for Blackburn Rovers. The Eighties saw the decade start with Robson going to United for £1.5M and surging to £2.8M when Liverpool re-signed Ian Rush. Chris Waddle was sold to Marseille for £4.25M in 1989.

Going all the way back to 1905, Alf Common was signed for £1,000 — the first four-figure transfer fee. Aptly named because spending money in football has always been common. The results do vary wildly.

In the last five years, Manchester United’s net spend of £684.61M is the highest in the Premier League. Newly crowned champions Arsenal are second with £675.77M. Man City are down in seventh with £397.78M.

You need money for success, but money doesn’t guarantee success.

This is why the mudslinging isn’t reserved just for Pep’s transfer activity. The outstanding 115+ charges remain the default position for all detractors. Never have so many people been experts on a topic they’ve no insight into or sound understanding of. Regardless of the outcome, the club – and managers and players by association – will never be given due credit.

None of the negativity can change the argument about Guardiola’s influence. Children are now trained differently because of his arrival. Every level of the football pyramid has altered its play style because of one man’s vision and application. In his leaving statement, Pep spoke more elegantly and poetically than anything this writer can create for such a great man.

He gets Manchester and Manchester loves him. And his truth sits in plain sight when he speaks about the area. Mentioning the Industrial Revolution, and a city built from graft, it becomes the perfect summary for his time at the club. He has spearheaded a football revolution. It required hard work. The result is like the colour of the bricks he mentions — imperfect but resilient. Everything is the product of a massive progression forward. The results not always pretty but authentic and worthwhile.

He changed how a country views its national sport.

Guardiola arrived as a football missionary. He leaves a man changed by England, but not nearly as much as England was changed by him.

Manchester City Ticket Sham

Manchester City Ticket Sham

One week, two Manchester City FC ticket issues. There aren’t complaints about the on-field management, the overall direction the club is heading, or the proposals for the future. But it isn’t news to anyone that there’s currently a cost-of-living crisis and the club has come across tone deaf in recent weeks.

The two issues are rooted in the same concern. Season ticket prices were announced, bringing wholesale increases. At the same time, fans who weren’t in the Champions League cup scheme were left unable to purchase a ticket for the home match against Real Madrid. Breaking down the Madrid semi-final first, it’s clear the club wanted to shift the tickets reserved for those in the cup scheme, then open it to all and sundry.

This means the club didn’t take into consideration how many matches a person had attended prior to the semi-final. There was no sliding scale to recognise loyalty. A person can only be in the cup scheme if they are a season ticket holder. Not everybody can afford this or may have been on waiting lists. There should be a secondary cup scheme for those who aren’t season ticket holders. No one is arguing with the cup scheme getting first dibs, but if any remain after this period, they should be released on either points or cup games attended that season as the criteria.

The club didn’t employ the method they used for the home game against Bayern Munich because the Real Madrid game isn’t considered “high risk”. This could be for one of two reasons. First, the club can argue Real Madrid returned some of their allocation. Thus, this would indicate a reduction in potential flashpoints between opposing fans. The second reason is more sinister: it had nothing to do with fan safety. The club knew they could instantly sell out to tourist fans so bypassed the loyal working class.

This is shortsighted at best. If you force out the most loyal of fan, good luck trying to get a decent gate when playing Carlisle United in the Carabao Cup.

However, it would be naïve to think the club is shortsighted. The entire business model is the blueprint for how to run a modern day football empire. So it’s with fear, the club appears to be sending the message that the working class is surplus to requirement.

The Abu Dhabi investment has revitalised areas of Manchester far more effectively than any Tory government’s idea of “levelling up”. They may have enriched communities but the one area the fanbase judges them most harshly: ticket prices, will always overshadow these improvements.

Everyone will always – to a lesser or greater degree, depending on personal circumstances – bemoan an increase to their season ticket. It should have come as little surprise there were increases. Huw Pill, the Bank of England’s chief economist, callously implied this week that workers should accept lower wage increases and accept they were going to be worse off.

This mindset hasn’t been extended to the 1% and big companies.

It has followed its way to the club’s thinking. There has been zero transparency or explanation for the seemingly arbitrary season ticket increases. There is a pattern though, and clear, desired outcome. The increases range from around 5%, to 8.3% to in excess of 10%. It seems those in the cheaper seats, often get hit with a disproportionate increase. Surely it would have been fairer to apply a set percentage increase across all season tickets.

So in a cost of living crisis, those with less, suffer more. At least the club is reflecting how society works. 

There is a growing feeling among fans that the business model is to squeeze out the local working class and bring in high spending tourists. In order to grow and continue to compete at the highest level, it’s understandable the club wants to exploit this revenue stream but it shouldn’t be to the detriment of loyal supporters.

The increase on tickets is negligible in terms of balancing the books for FFP. It’s all the extras tourist fans bring, like trips to the club shop, that make the difference. Many working class fans are counting the pennies when weighing up multiple trips to Wembley and Champions League matches at home. In the club’s defence, maybe they considered too many tickets would be sold on the secondary market so cut out the middleman? Or perhaps it is growing tired with fan conduct in certain areas of the ground during halftime and sees this as a way to restrict negative elements? We don’t know the rationale because nothing is openly communicated.

Only those at the club know if they want a genuine connection with its fanbase or if improvements to local communities really are the product of sportswashing like detractors would have you believe.

If feels like the club see this as a natural evolution. That over time, the stands will resemble Stamford Bridge more than Maine Road and only the wealthy are ensured seats to the big games.

But there’ll never take away those mouthwatering midweek League Cup games to lower league opposition. 

Manchester SOS: Save Our Ship

Manchester SOS: Save Our Ship

This week The Guardian published an article which claimed Manchester’s football clubs should remove the famous ship from their badges. The ship – which also features on the council’s Coat of Arms – was labelled as a symbol of slavery by journalist Simon Hattenstone. It shouldn’t be surprising The Guardian has managed to find something to be offended by when examining Mancunian symbols, it appears their job is to create issues where they don’t exist.

Not that slavery didn’t exist back when the ship symbol was adopted, nor an attempt to marginalise the effects of an abhorrent trade. Any suggestion that slavery should be celebrated or held aloft would rightly be condemned. But the Cult of Virtue Signalling has run into the problem all conspiracy theorists face: they only take the pieces of evidence which fit their narrative, discarding the rest.

This means everything presented lacks context. In the delicate case of slavery mentioned here, which happened in the nineteenth century, there should be consideration given to judging people by the standards of the day. A previously written piece on this site recalled how there were calls to remove several of Sir Robert Peel’s statues because his family profited from the slave trade. At the time, his father was breaking no recognised laws. By the standards of his day, there wouldn’t have been many complaints.

However, his son – Sir Robert – voted for its abolition. Yes, it can be argued he benefitted from the slave trade but the resulting power and influence helped bring about its end. He’s also the creator of the modern day police force, and brought in the Factory Act to minimise the working hours of women and children and introduced basic safety standards.

So, a pretty mixed bag, that’s impossible to reach a conclusion by wiping him from history. In comparison, the Manchester ship debacle created by The Guardian is easier to decipher.

Slavery had already been abolished when the ship was introduced as a city symbol. There is the misconception its existence is to mark the Manchester Ship Canal, but this isn’t the case. It was representing free trade. Manchester famously became the worker bees of the Industrial Revolution. Sadly, it’s less known just how prominent those workers were in ending slavery abroad.

Hattenstone would have you believe a booming Manchester was created off the backs of cotton slaves in the United States. This is false on two accounts. Firstly, Britain had also been using cotton from within its own empire, namely India. More importantly, Mancunian workers took a strong stance against the American Confederates. Liverpool had already been seduced by the wealth from “slave trade money” as the University of Manchester explains.

It was in Manchester where workers supported Lincoln and the American slaves and refused to conform to Confederate pressures. This even led to riots. The strength of character and principles cannot be overstated here. These were people who risked their very existence, struggling through a cotton famine, in order to enact a change for the better. A change that was on the other side of the Atlantic.

Are we to believe that workers who risked their livelihood to oppose slavery, later raised no objection to the city using a symbol celebrating the act? Or is it plausible that the ship’s inclusion was about free trade all along?

It would be ignorant to say Manchester – and Britain as a whole – didn’t at various points in history benefit from slavery. Where possible, appropriate reparations should take place. But The Guardian can’t pick a tiny snapshot of a situation, and make a large sweeping statement.

The Cult of Virtue Signalling should stop looking for extraneous links in an attempt to remove historical symbols and put some effort into preventing modern day issues. 

Why isn’t Hattenstone demanding Manchester City council close all the Nike stores in the area? His paper, The Guardian, wrote in 2001 that Nike couldn’t guarantee its products wouldn’t be made using child labour. Does anyone recall a twenty-year campaign from The Guardian to end child labour? Is it too far away from these shores to take an interest in? Because distance didn’t stop the ship symbol wearing workers of Manchester taking a personal stand against an issue on the other side of the world.

Do we excuse The Guardian because it’s socially acceptable to wear Nike trainers in spite of the links to child labour? On this issue, it must be okay to pass judgement based on the premise: we can only judge people based on the times they live in. This seems like double-standards.

Instead of trying to reinforce questionable links to slavery in Mancunian symbols, why isn’t The Guardian combating modern day slavery? There were 5,144 recorded offences in the year ending 2019. It’s safe to assume the real numbers dwarf this as organised crime makes it difficult for victims to escape.

Energy should be spent on real issues instead of creating strawman arguments where people in authority are too scared of opposing the view in case its weaponised against them politically.

Wouldn’t it be better to educate the people of today how we benefitted from slavery, acknowledge that evil, then explain how it was abolished and ultimately opposed in Manchester on behalf of those on another continent? That Manchester’s Ship is now a symbol of free trade, open shores — an open world, where every person is equal.