Manchester City are currently the best football club in England but has Pep Guardiola put them in any unfamiliar position?
I have a feeling that the disaster that befell Bayern Munich after the appointment of the Spanish tactician is about to strike the Mancunians. In 2013, he took over a treble-winning Bayern side which was holding the UEFA Champions League, Bundesliga title and DFB-Pokal but it all went south when he walked in.
That team had finished runners-up in Europe the year before but he failed to reach a single final in his three years with the Bavarians and let’s face it, winning the Bundesliga doesn’t make you the best manager in the world because it’s almost a given for them and Pep’s task was to maintain their continental dominance.
Let’s take a look below at how City is regressing under his tutelage.
Just like I did with Bayern, I’ll compare him with the previous coach, Manuel Pellegrini, who won the Premier League title and the League Cup in his first season despite having spent only a portion of Guardiola’s budget. It has taken Pep two seasons to achieve the same feat as his first season finished trophyless.
In terms of Europe, it took Pellegrini three seasons to reach the semifinals, as he crashed out in the last 16 twice, losing to Barcelona who would go on to win it on one of those occasions. He would again lose to eventual champions in the shape of Real Madrid in 2015/16 but that time in the last four.
Pep hasn’t reached that stage with the Citizens as he has lost in the last 16 to Monaco last season and fell out the quarter-finals this year.
My point is, he has won two domestic trophies which his predecessor has won and in Europe, he has failed to reach the stage that his predecessor reached. City are playing good football and will win the league by a mile but there’s no unfamiliar superior position Pep has put them in.
The Spanish tactician has turned them into one of the most feared teams with his famous tiki taka that he founded during his Barcelona days but we must remember that as soon as he got found out he never really became competitive in Europe again. It took a while for English teams to devise strategies to counter it but as I’m writing this, his team is on a three-match losing streak. Mark my words, the team will suffer from next season.
