PEP AND MAN CITY, THE UNTOLD DECADE: Part 2

Five weeks into his new life and things were coming easy for Pep Guardiola. With an eighth consecutive win to kickstart his Manchester City reign safely in the bag, it seemed Guardiola was already on his way to catapulting the upstarts into a whole new stratosphere. Lofty expectations were only spiralling higher with each passing game.

City had just beaten Bournemouth 4-0 in mid-September. Ilkay Gundogan, the first signing of the new dawn, scored on his Premier League debut. It was the first time in four years that a City team had not included any of Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure, David Silva or Sergio Aguero. And you wouldn’t have known.

On the back of schooling Manchester United at Old Trafford a week earlier – a gut punch for old LaLiga foe Jose Mourinho as he tried to correct post-Fergie failings across town – a feeling swept through the country that, not only was success guaranteed at City, the whole lot was about to come immediately.

So with Bournemouth dispatched, an outside fascination with Europe’s most in vogue manager and his tactics was reaching levels unbound. Guardiola walked into the Etihad Stadium’s media centre sporting a shirt, tie and a jumper. That’s what he wore in those early days. Munich chic. He was asked about the Quadruple, about whether all four trophies were the aim, and after whispering an expletive in incredulity, eight silent seconds hung in the air.

‘People believe I am going to win the Champions League because I am a really good coach,’ he answered. ‘I don't think so, guys.’

Quite how prophetic that was would only become clear over the course of his first three-year contract. City eventually lifted the biggest prize in club football in 2023, seven years after Guardiola arrived and four seasons after he had originally planned to leave.

As he poured scorn that day in late September 2016 on the idea of repeating a feat he had achieved at Barcelona in 2009, Guardiola drew a very clear and obvious line in the sand. Do not expect miracles. Magic wands belong only in fantasy.

But what he surely did not expect was the season of struggle that followed, a season of tortuous and at times almost impossible adjustment and acclimatisation to an environment and style of football and sporting culture that occasionally seemed to utterly baffle the finest coaching mind in Europe.

Season 2016-17 – for all that it started without a ripple – was to become the first of a storied career not to yield a single piece of silverware and one where he conceded more goals than ever before as a coach. As such, it was utterly fascinating to observe.

This, after all, was a coach who had arrived on the back of three Bundesliga triumphs with Bayern Munich. With Barcelona, he had won the same number of La Liga titles and two Champions Leagues.

At 45, Guardiola was at the peak of his powers, the genius City and their Spanish executive team had been prepared to wait for. He was the coach who made winning look easy. Wasn’t he?

Ultimately his first season, which saw City finish third to champions Chelsea and crash out of Europe in February at the hands of a Monaco team boasting Kylian Mbappe, Falcao, Benjamin Mendy and Bernardo Silva, set fire to all of that and he felt it so deeply that – in his own mind – it was to be expunged from the records.

So bad had it been that he scratched it, telling friends that this was now a four-year project, due to end in 2020 instead. The hardships and blows across the eight months following that stroll against Bournemouth – including a League Cup exit to United and an FA Cup semi-final defeat by Arsenal – were so severe and so mentally discombobulating that he verbally committed to another season, ultimately signing a contract 12 months later.

Guardiola Season One was, frankly, nothing like anybody had expected.

Manuel Pellegrini’s successor knew an overhaul was required even before turning up at work on his first day.

Having spent weeks memorising the names of non-football staff from lists he had drawn up by employees already in situ, the new boss greeted Stacey on reception by name as he breezed through the automatic glass doors. She, at least, would be safe. Not everybody was.

Guardiola had already spoken to his great friend, City director of football Txiki Begiristain, in typically forensic depth about the playing squad and what was needed. Begiristain had made it clear the refresh would have to come in phases. Guardiola, for his part, said he wished to avoid any players on Begiristain’s longlist who remained at the clubs where he had previously coached them.

But the overhaul was to encompass tactics and culture, too. To Guardiola, the flaws in his inheritance had been obvious but by the time he batted away those questions about the Quadruple after the Bournemouth afternoon, he had already become aware that the size of job may have been underestimated.

He had walked into a club that had finished fourth as Leicester City completed their historic 2016 fairytale, the board unhappy at an ‘unacceptable’ league campaign – to quote a member of the executive team at the time. There had even been fears, in mid-March, that Pellegrini wouldn’t even reach the minimum requirement of Champions League qualification. He did, on the final day, but only goal difference squeezed them in ahead of Louis van Gaal’s United.

All that appeared forgotten when a somewhat bemused Guardiola, in skinny jeans, converse trainers, blazer and t-shirt, waved to 5,800 supporters at a welcome event in July, compered by the BBC’s Sally Nugent. A hamper arrived in his office with PG Tips, a Coronation Street box set and some Oasis vinyl. He was coerced into singing the City anthem Blue Moon on stage. When confetti was fired from a cannon at the climax of his unveiling, he almost jumped out of his skin.

Yet the most serious moment of that afternoon came when he uttered the words 'kick their ass' during an explanation of how he would approach his new players, many of whom had phoned in their work ever since Pellegrini’s departure – and Guardiola’s appointment – had been hastily announced at a bizarre press conference five months earlier.

Guardiola felt he was looking at an overweight group of players – and told them so. Samir Nasri, Toure and Kevin De Bruyne, the latter signed the previous summer in readiness for the new era, were all ordered to sort their body fat out during pre-season. Nasri never recovered, jettisoned to Sevilla on loan. De Bruyne became the club’s greatest ever player. There were different ways of interpreting the message.

Players who do not hit their target weights under Guardiola are banished from training, both as punishment and to avoid the risk of injury. Following a flurry of these misdemeanours in the opening weeks, there are only a handful of other examples to be found across the following decade, most notably midfielder Kalvin Phillips in 2022.

The body fat of City’s players is measured on the scales every single morning without exception. Whoever collates the data, usually nutritionist Tom Parry, has to be in Guardiola’s office for a predetermined time, in a move that also catches out tardiness. The results work on a traffic light system and very few players fail it, largely because once they hit amber, panic sets in.

Back in 2016 though, this presented a significant shift in styles. Guardiola could not understand why some of his collective had known about the change in coach for almost a year, with City’s pursuit the worst-kept secret in football, but had still failed to look after themselves.

At Guardiola’s new City, much would be different and changes in personnel – some significant enough to make headlines and some even at academy level – happened in a flurry across the opening months of the maiden season, starting on the ill-fated tour of China.

City were showing off their manager to a new audience, scheduled to face United in Beijing and then Borussia Dortmund in Shenzhen. A chance to capitalise on their new-found global appeal.

But what followed would present the dampest of squibs. Heavy rain meant United was postponed but long before the weather, the pitch at the imposing ‘Bird’s Nest’ was in disarray, affected by fungus. Guardiola was apoplectic. ‘Unacceptable,’ he said. ‘We didn’t come for a holiday.’

Regardless, he was still forming opinions on the other side of the world. In Beijing, Guardiola watched as Hart failed time and again to chip balls over to goalkeeping coach Xabi Mancisidor in what appeared a simple drill, with work going on behind the scenes to land Claudio Bravo from Barca.

In a conversation between Hart and Guardiola, the England goalkeeper – a stalwart for City and a key component of their successes – pleaded to stay and fight for his place. Hart maintained that his footwork would improve and vowed to learn new ways. As this went on, Guardiola began to become exasperated. ‘Joe, Joe, you don’t understand,’ he said, voiced raised. There was zero ambiguity: he would not be playing for City under the new manager.

Hart was only 29 but that discussion effectively ended his career at the very top level. Hart has since admitted to wanting to ‘rip Pep’s head off’, although has now made peace with the decision and even interviewed Guardiola for a broadcaster in 2025.

That City were hot on Gianluigi Donnarumma a year later, the basics of Bravo’s actual goalkeeping badly letting him down, would suggest Hart’s departure was not solely down to passing through the lines and point towards a manager insistent on shaking up his senior personnel.

While still only a teenager at AC Milan, there were reservations from scouts about Donnarumma’s ball-playing ability but a move was only halted by an asking price higher than the British-record £35million City paid to Benfica for Ederson. Donnarumma, the great Italian, would finally arrive in the summer of 2025 but by then Ederson had redefined goalkeeping in England as City had hoped Bravo would.

Already 33 when he joined in that first summer, Bravo was an archetypal Guardiola No 1. But the Chilean was an early Guardiola failure. The knives were out once he dropped a cross on debut at United. A sending off for handball at Barca in the Champions League followed while he rather embarrassingly conceded from six consecutive shots during two games in January – including the nadir, a 4-0 defeat at Everton. He only saved 57 per cent of attempts on his goal that season.

Aside from Hart, sent to Torino on loan, question marks hung over two other stellar City names. Toure – at the rampaging, buccaneering heart of City’s journey to relevance under Abu Dhabi – had actually seen the end coming and all-out war broke out when City’s Champions League squad dropped in early September. No Toure. The club legend who Guardiola felt was not heeding off-the-ball instructions in training hadn’t been named in any of their first three league squads.

Toure’s combustible and free-talking agent Dimitri Seluk, an interminable problem for executives at City HQ, hit the phones to some trusted media contacts during that international break. ‘Humiliated’ read the headlines. Stewing, Guardiola struck back, insisting that Toure was not going to be considered for selection until he received an apology.

Somehow – and maybe this plays to Guardiola’s pragmatic side – a peace was brokered. Toure scored both goals of a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace on his comeback in mid-November and was probably City’s best player for the remainder of the season, going on a charm offensive with reporters that extended to embraces after matches.

Against all odds, the great Ivorian penned a new contract but an uneasy relationship endured. Frozen out once again in 2017-18, Toure was to make wildly inflammatory accusations about Guardiola’s alleged attitude towards Africans. He remorsefully wrote to the City hierarchy some time later, hoping it would be passed on to Guardiola. His apology went without acknowledgement.

Shortly after Seluk’s initial outburst and still unbeaten, City headed to Swansea for a double header, in the Carabao Cup and then the league. Toure licked his wounds at home while injury clouds circled over Vincent Kompany.

During a five-day residency at five-star Celtic Manor – venue for the 2010 Ryder Cup – Guardiola was in his element, the life and soul of a bonding barbecue, wanting to know the personal stories of all his staff. They had seen some of this in China, too.

‘Tactically he is a magician but the human side comes first,’ one staff member said. ‘The chef wasn’t taking corners that Saturday at Swansea but he must have felt just as important.’

Kompany, however, was metaphorically miles away. The Wednesday night cup game was his first appearance under Guardiola. He finished the game but suffered a groin problem in the final moments. The club captain had been mismanaged the season before so City took this comeback slowly, giving him all the time required. To suffer another issue straight away came as a crushing blow for the Belgian.

Kompany held reservations about Guardiola’s plan for a three-at-the-back system, discussing with the manager how it might not suit him, and frustration at his circumstances boiled over during a session on the eve of September’s Manchester derby when he came to blows with fellow defender Aleksandar Kolarov.

With Hart and Nasri gone, Toure exiled – plus Gael Clichy, Pablo Zabaleta and Bacary Sagna effectively surplus to requirements by November – Kompany was quite right to fear for the future. Ultimately, he would do three years with Guardiola, a mountain of a centre half who lifted two more league titles before heading to Anderlecht in 2019 as a player-manager. And when fit, he was a colossus, remembered in part for the title-defining long range strike to beat Leicester City weeks before his exit.

In those early months in Manchester, Guardiola pushed on against the headwinds inevitably caused by the changes he was making. Some repercussions were predictable.

That autumn, for example, one senior player held court with reporters at a Manchester hotel to privately denigrate Guardiola’s personality and his methods. He let loose on how he had not warmed to key components of the manager’s staff and complained fiercely that they wouldn’t speak English.

Meanwhile, the Spanish centre forward Nolito – signed for £14m in summer 2016 – moaned that team talks weren’t being translated into Spanish. Proof, perhaps, that when change is coming, those who wish to, will always find something on which to pin their unhappiness.

‘My daughter's face has changed colour – it looks like she's been living in a cave,’ Nolito said of the Manchester climate as he plotted an escape back home. He also criticised cliques within the squad, claiming there was no unity.

Yet while Nolito – who left a year later having scored four league goals – peered out of the window at the clouds, Guardiola was busy forging a spirit that would stand the test of time and heavily contribute to the record-breaking Centurions campaign of 2017-2018.

Version 2016 of Guardiola had a habit. He would make the journey to the club’s administration building, a short walk from his office at City’s sprawling compound across from the stadium in east Manchester, to perch on desks of random employees. He’d ask what they did and who they were. Many were aghast. Back over the other side of the car park, they grew even closer. ‘This was like going to work to see your mates,’ one first-team staff member says. ‘Pep would come down asking questions about your family. It was just a joy.’

Forming this seemed meticulous. There was a running theme during bonding nights at Tapeo & Wine, a tapas restaurant on Deansgate owned by the father of United playmaker Juan Mata and central enough for everybody to attend with ease.