Manchester City and Liverpool are the two best club sides in the world and their new rivalry dominates English footballJürgen Klopp says this will not be the title decider. OK, Jürgen. If you say so, Jürgen. Perhaps we can safely file that away with “every opponent is a tough opponent” and “we don’t look at the league table” in the catalogue of great managerial sleights of our time. The rest of us, meanwhile, are entitled to regard Manchester City v Liverpool for what it is: a fixture that has been burning a hole in the schedule since August, that as the weeks passed was anticipated first in hope, then in expectation, and now finally in a barely disguised longing.It is...
Manchester City manager has been uber-serene of late but his clash with Ángel Correa on Tuesday night was instructiveThere was a glaring reveal towards the end of Manchester City’s deserved victory against Atlético Madrid on Tuesday. With Jack Grealish on the floor, Ángel Correa smashed the ball into the No 10’s face. It was on the touchline. It was right by Pep Guardiola. And City’s manager did not like it at all.So: he entered the pitch and shoved Correa. He stuck up for his player. Bravo. He might also have been booked or even sent off. But Istvan Kovacs ignored the seething 51-year-old and booked Correa. Continue reading...
Scarred by an elimination as Bayern’s coach, the manager’s urge to take chance out of last-four ties undermines City’s chancesThe biggest obstacle to Pep Guardiola winning another Champions League, it is widely accepted, is Pep Guardiola. There cannot be a Manchester City knockout tie in the Champions League without talk of his tendency to overthink.The most dramatic moment of last season’s final came when the lineups were released an hour before kick-off and neither Rodri nor Fernandinho were included. It’s what elevates Guardiola above the throng: he is not merely a great manager, but also a flawed hero: he is Faustus, he is Oedipus, he is Charles Foster Kane. Continue reading...
City’s rivals, still in limbo after bungling the task of replacing Alex Ferguson, are proof of the pitfalls of a poor succession planMany years afterwards, Pep Guardiola would joke that the reason he never took over at Manchester United was because he couldn’t understand Alex Ferguson’s accent. The pair went for dinner in New York in September 2012, when Guardiola was on sabbatical and pondering his next move. Over a luxurious meal and fine wine – all paid for by Ferguson – they talked falteringly about football and life and the future.“My English is not so good,” Guardiola later said, “and when Sir Alex spoke quickly I sometimes had a problem to understand him. That’s why maybe I didn’t understand...
Striker burgled a spectacular winning goal but helped his team as a pressing midfielder, playmaker and false forwardAbout an hour before kick-off at the Etihad Stadium a member of staff walks around handing out puzzles. At most grounds they are more popularly known as “team sheets”, but ever since Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City the exercise of deciphering his starting XI has become almost as absorbing as watching it. Brows are furrowed. Heads are scratched. Is that Bernardo Silva as a false 9? João Cancelo in midfield? That can’t be an 8, or a 7, and the 5 goes there, so … Ederson at centre-half?The real trick, of course, is realising that at Guardiola’s City, formations and starting points...