The Barcelona and Bayern Munich players were already familiar with Guardiola’s complex juego de posición theory – at City he was virtually starting from scratch
The fashion these days is to knife a manager at the first sign of trouble. Nobody is allowed to build, nobody is allowed to learn from a mistake. Move to a new country, take over a new team, try to adapt to a new environment and if you’re not winning titles six months later you’re a fraud. Neither Jürgen Klopp nor Pep Guardiola are under pressure as such heading into Sunday’s game at the Etihad, but both are facing grumblings of discontent.
When Steve McClaren was sacked by Derby last week it meant that a quarter of all league clubs had changed their manager in the previous 100 days. Aitor Karanka’s exit from Middlesbrough then followed on Thursday. The level of churn is absurd and counterproductive on a number of levels. It’s a troubling thought that, had they been working in the modern era, there is a significant chance Herbert Chapman, Matt Busby, Don Revie, Bill Shankly, Brian Clough (twice) and Alex Ferguson would all have been sacked before they had enjoyed real success.
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