Pep Guardiola has rediscovered his mojo

Manchester City has not bought themselves out of trouble, rather Pep Guardiola is coaching them back to greatness.

Pep Guardiola celebrates with his players after winning the first leg of the English League Cup against rivals Manchester United Picture: AFP

The 2020-21 season is testing the judgment of pundits and soccer journalists. Some of you might say “exposing” is a better word and as someone who once asked Roy Hodgson if Tom Cleverley could become England’s Cesc Fabregas, I am not about to get precious about perceptions.

But this campaign infected by COVID does present unique challenges to those attempting to comment on the Premier League. A three-week lurch of form for a team can impact their results in six, even seven games. Everyone has injuries. Without crowds, mentality and intensity are not the same factors as normal and reduced training and analysis time somewhat levels the tactical playing field too.

The table, with its small gap between the sides in first and tenth place (seven points), has never seemed more opaque, more like the Championship. It is tricky, being definitive about who is doing well.

The resurgence of Manchester City is unmistakeable though. After losing away to Tottenham Hotspur on November 21, they were 13th and stuck, it felt, in the same state of drift and doubt that had afflicted them since the end of 2018-19. In that 2-0 defeat by Spurs they were guileless, rope-a-doped by Jose Mourinho, whose counterattacking game plan was hardly unexpected.

Watching Guardiola get done by his oldest foe, so predictably, seemed further proof of a coach in crisis and City’s revival is cheering, not least because we are watching one of the great managers fight back.

Two days before that Spurs game, Guardiola extended his contract, which had been in its final year, at last quashing the uncertainty about his personal commitment to the City project. On both himself and his squad it had a stabilising effect.

Knowing that a manager is staying, or thinking that they are going, can have an amazing effect on a team, as anyone who remembers Manchester United’s drop-off when Sir Alex Ferguson looked like retiring in 2001-02 will attest. Guardiola’s first proper week at work, after his renewal, came after the Spurs defeat and the first thing players did was roll up their sleeves and win at Olympiacos.

City scored just one delightful Phil Foden goal, while missing chances. Effort would be required to resharpen their attacking but the significant thing was the immediate tightening of City’s defensive play. Olympiacos registered zero shots on target, zero corners and did not have a touch in City’s box until the 88th minute.

That was the first of six consecutive clean sheets. The past six games have brought three further shut-outs. Guardiola was criticised for his cautiousness in a league stalemate at Old Trafford on December 12 but reanalysing that performance, within the context of City’s whole post-Tottenham run, allows a better understanding of the manager’s thinking.

Having found solidity, his priority was simply to not toss it away on an occasion as psychologically consequential as a Manchester derby. “It was a good point. It will be a good point in the future,” Guardiola said on the day. We should have listened.

In Wednesday’s Carabao Cup defeat of United, City had the same careful defensive structure as in the league derby, and the desperation that crept into Bruno Fernandes’s play was a symbol of United’s frustration. Where City were different was in the positive side of their game. Their passing was quicker and braver. They pressed and moved off the ball more quickly and bravely too.

Their zip is back and so are those lovely Guardiola patterns. Via the rotation of his attacking players and his favourite drill of sucking the opposition to one side then switching play to an overload on the other flank, Guardiola showed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer how it is done, creating openings on a compacted pitch. That win followed an equally complete performance at Chelsea. Rebuild by going back to the basics of clean sheets and structure before opening out: if Sam Allardyce performed the trick Guardiola is pulling off he would win an LMA award and be celebrated for his canny, traditional management.

I did not see this upturn coming. At least not so quickly. Guardiola’s prowess has never been a doubt but I thought it might take longer to transition City from one era to the next. The post 2018-19 slump coincided with Vincent Kompany’s departure and their calamitous end to last season plus a bad start to this one was influenced by Sergio Aguero’s unavailability through the injuries that have blighted his veteran years.

Add in David Silva leaving and Fernandinho’s age and it looked like a stroke of brilliance and leadership was required to replace all at once. But underpinning City’s defensive rebirth is Fernandinho’s reconversion from centre back to shielding midfielder. In his old position he looks new again, good – at 35 – for another season or two. The rebirth of John Stones reflects well on the player’s character and Guardiola’s man-management, but it would not have been possible without Ruben Dias, at 23 an extraordinarily mature and influential player.

The Portuguese is playing on his “wrong” side – the left of a centre-back pairing – but is at present the best defender in England. He is seldom beaten in the air or the ground, seems always in position and, for that special Guardiola touch, has the best passing success of any Premier League player. What is more, he leads. He talks Stones and others through games.

There are no direct substitutes for unique players such as Silva and Aguero. Ultimately, Guardiola will sign a new striker to replace Aguero and continue grooming Phil Foden as Silva II. For now, he is finding subtle ways to restore City’s incisiveness – such as that attacking rotation and the use of a false nine. Central to all the strategies is getting Kevin De Bruyne higher up the pitch.

City are far from there yet but the pathway to a post-Kompany, post-Silva, post-Aguero future is emerging and Foden and Dias are not the only next-era talents who look bankable. Ferran Torres and Joao Cancelo seem important jigsaw pieces too.

I wrote, in August, that while signing Lionel Messi would be marvellous, the Guardiola fan in me would like to see him coach, not buy, his way back to glory and that is what he is doing.

Right now, City are the best team in the country and unless Liverpool rediscover their mojo they will win the league.

The Sunday Times