Pep Guardiola and the daunting task that awaits the Spanish maestro
Pep Guardiola graced the Premier League in 2016 on the back of huge success in Germany, having won the Bundesliga in each of the three seasons he spent in charge of the Bavarian giants, a spell preceded by a jaw-dropping trophy haul that saw him win two Champions League and three La Liga titles in his four seasons in charge of FC Barcelona.
All this overwhelming triumph came with his teams playing breathtaking, mesmerizing attacking football, the tiki-taka, which became the envy of Europe and the whole world alike. There's no surprise, therefore, that Manchester City, whose ambitions are to reach the very top of European football had to go for him the moment he became available.
His coming to England was greeted with scepticism by some pundits who, perhaps having got too used to the way football is played in England and how titles had been won in recent seasons, opined that the tiki-taka style of play wouldn't gain a stranglehold in England.
Indeed after failing to launch a sustainable assault of note at the title in his first season at the Etihad, the naysayers had been vindicated. However, the man himself was hell-bent on implementing his style regardless. Asked in December 2017 if there was need to change his philosophy to succeed in England, Guardiola responded in emphatic fashion:
"If that's going to happen, I'm going to retire. Because I don't feel it another way. I could defend more deep, but I want to have the ball, I want to play. From my first game with the second team in Barcelona, I always try to look for that. Sometimes it doesn't work, but that is because the other team is good or we are not good enough. But the idea of changing; that's not going to happen. Never, never in my life!"
He didn't change, his team disappointed both at home and in Europe, but the signs were evident that he was building something special at the Etihad. One could argue that he hadn't had enough time with his new team as many of them had international engagements, the Euro and the Coppa America.
Last season though, all haters and doom spellers were silenced. His team were all-conquering. They broke and set all sorts of records, winning 32 league games, reaching an astonishing 100 points and scoring 106 goals along the way (all league highs) and most importantly, playing the Guardiola way!
They finished with an insurmountable +79 goal difference, with the closest to them being Liverpool at +46. In terms of competitiveness, City looked to be in a league of their own, as Manchester United, their closest challengers, finished a disappointing 19 points adrift! In every sense of the word, the Spanish maestro had well and truly conquered England.
This season though presents a completely different challenge. Pep Guardiola has got to prove himself all over again, by doing something only two men have been able to do since the inception of the Premier League in 1992.
In the 26-year life of the Premier League, only the great Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho have managed to retain the crown. Will Pep become the third manager to do it? It's a possibility but as we've seen, it's very, very difficult.
Winning the league, and in a manner that they did, comes along with a few challenges that Pep will have to contend with. First of all, the opposition managers tend to become wiser, having been caught by surprise in the season past.
When Arsenal went through the entire season unbeaten, managers found a way of frustrating and disrupting their rhythm of play by being extremely physical. Sir Alex Ferguson was the first to succeed in stopping the Gunners in October 2004, with Wenger's men going down 2-1 at Old Trafford, and other managers followed suit.
More recently, Antonio Conte stunned England with his 3-4-3 formation end route to the title, winning 30 games that season a record at the time. Until Mauricio Pochettino found a way around that system in April 2017 to hand Chelsea a 2-0 loss, Conte's team had proved absolutely impregnable.
The 2017/18 season proved very hard for Chelsea that had almost swept all before them the season before. That was partly because managers had found a way of countering Conte's tactics, leading the defending champions to have a bad season that saw them finish 5th and into the Europa League.
The architect of Chelsea's latest triumph, Antonio Conte, has since been shown the exit! In short, champions start the season as the team to beat with the rest of the managers laying down plans to beat them. That is one challenge Guardiola will have to face squarely.
Secondly, there is the element of complacency and or the hangover of being champions. Antonio Conte fought with his bosses over the transfer dealings, with the Italian asking for players the club weren't willing to buy, perhaps because the club felt what they had was enough.
That was a mistake and it clearly explains why the club struggled so badly last season. After last season's title win, Pep Guardiola spoke to Sky Sports' Monday Night Football and said his team didn't need much for the new season.
He said he would only go for a midfielder and a forward. Indeed a forward in Riyad Mahrez has come in while Jorginho was signed by Chelsea from under their noses after Chelsea offered to pay a little more than City were willing to pay. Having missed out on the Italian midfield pass master, City's transfer business has gone quiet lately.
Probably there's a feeling that there's enough in the tank for the new campaign. The truth is that a title-winning team needs to be improved through new signings to keep the existing players on tenterhooks and out of the comfort zone.
If City think they have enough, that is complacency that could come back to haunt them over the course of the season. No wonder, at a time when managers are busy fine-tuning their squads for the new season, Pep finds time to watch The Open!
The physical and mental demands of winning a championship could sometimes be hard to contend with and City are no exception. Such success also led to 16 of their key players being selected in squads that represented their respective nations in Russia this year and many of them reached the latter stages of the tournament.
This means they will have less recovery time, which could count against them in the new campaign that starts in a fortnight. Currently, many of those players have not even reported back for preseason preparations and could be short of fitness when they open their season against Arsenal on August 12th.
The Cityzens' manager may have insisted that to change his philosophy would amount to betrayal, but there were incidents last season that suggested that sometimes he needed to adapt to the opponent's tactics to nullify and beat them.
City struggled against a very organised Crystal Palace side that was fearless and took the game to them resulting in a draw, while Pep completely failed to find answers to the questions Liverpool asked his team in the league game at Anfield and the two Champions League games they played.
All three games ended in defeat. That clearly highlighted the fallibility of this City side that opponents should have taken note of.
Sticking to his guns and implementing a philosophy he clearly believes in, Pep Guardiola swept all before him, but given the new challenges that next season brings, the Spanish maestro will have to prove himself all over again!