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The Spaniard will move to the Etihad Stadium at the end of the season on a three-year contract, and with £250 million in the transfer kitty they could soon be unrecognisable.
With Pep Guardiola confirmed as the new manager of Manchester City, his tenure beginning in the summer, attention can now turn to what the Premier League can expect to see from football’s most thoughtful and risk-tasking coach. Granted a free reign, total backing and a transfer pot of around £250 million, there will be huge changes on the way at the Etihad Stadium.
In his first season as first-team coach of Barcelona, Guardiola cut loose the likes of Ronaldinho, Deco and Giovani dos Santos to instill more discipline in the camp, placing greater emphasis on the club’s La Masia academy and returning Barca to their tiki taka roots. Similarly, at Bayern, he made signing playmaker Thiago Alcantara a priority as he turned die Roten’s possession style all the way up to 11.
Now he faces perhaps his biggest challenge, taking over a team in something of an identity flux under Manuel Pellegrini and with several older heads on the verge of being phased out. Guardiola will undoubtedly be active in the transfer market, but the extent to which he will decide to re-shape the squad is up in the air. Check out just a few of the potential formations City could line up in next season, featuring several new faces…
City are already a title-challenging side with world-class players in every area of the pitch – from goalkeeper to attack – so, despite the likely funds at Guardiola’s disposal, it is not a given that he will look to plunder the transfer market as soon as he takes charge. It was not until his second season at Bayern, for example, that he bolstered the side’s Spanish contingent with three of his countrymen.
With a solid base already in place, it may take as little as two signings to re-shape the team in their new manager’s image while also providing the hordes of young talent lurking at the club the opportunity to shine. Alan Pardew has suggested Guardiola might need to “adapt” to the Premier League, and not straying too far from the setup that has worked so well for Pellegrini seems like a safe strategy.
Yaya Toure is expected to depart in the summer, leaving Fernandinho as the midfielder best suited to Guardiola’s brand of football, while the 45-year-old is thought to have been consulted about the signing of Kevin De Bruyne – a player City have always thought of as capable of playing a deeper, Steven Gerrard-like role.
The signing of a player such as David Alaba could be enough to begin the transition from Pellegrini’s style to Guardiola’s, simultaneously solving an often problematic left-back position but granting the Austrian freedom to roam into midfield, as he does for Bayern, dictating tempo and ramping up the side’s possession control. On the right flank, long-term target Leroy Sane could offer the directness and finishing that Jesus Navas does not, but while still retaining the width that stretches opposition defences to breaking point.
EXPERIMENT WITH A BACK THREE
Guardiola is famous for his rather eccentric formations – trying to guess how Bayern will line up pre-match from the team sheet alone is asking for trouble – and he frequently uses a back three. But that is a tactic which has not always worked in the winger-heavy Premier League, with teams exploiting the space left down the flanks, but perhaps Guardiola’s rather more fluid take on the system could sidestep that shortcoming.
The likes of Alaba and Philipp Lahm have played more like midfielders when deployed as part of the Bayern back three, as a sea of red shirts swarms over the opposition, pen them back into their 18-yard box and strangle them with possession. If that style can work in the Bundesliga – where teams have racked up almost three times as many counter-attack goals as Premier League sides (71 to 25) – then it ought to work in England too.
Of course, Bayern have one of Europe’s outstanding centre-backs to rely upon, while, at the other end of the spectrum, City are given heart palpitations every time Eliaquim Mangala goes anywhere near the ball. For a back three to work, new signings will be needed, and the versatile Alaba and ball-playing Everton centre-back John Stones feel like good fits for a back-line that has been City’s Achilles heel in a title race they should have all but wrapped up by now.
POSSESSION IS NINE-TENTHS OF PEP'S LAW
Goals have not really been a problem for City – they have topped the Premier League scoring charts for the last two seasons – but truly controlling matches, and especially matches against teams of equal or greater standing than themselves, has often proved elusive (they only rank 13th in Europe for possession, almost 12% down on Bayern). Guardiola sides, however, always assert themselves on the opposition and dictate the rhythm and tempo of matches. That is partly a problem of mentality that needs fixing, but it is also an issue of personnel.
All too often, City’s back-line has sparked unnecessary panic with flustered decision-making and wayward passing while the midfield can become open and exposed. Guardiola will almost certainly be keen to add both defensive cover and fresh faces in midfield. The addition of players of Alaba and Stones’ skill set and confidence levels would undoubtedly make City a more assured passing outfit, but the midfield also needs an overhaul.
Fernandinho is the only player that looks a suitable fit for the Catalan coach – versatile, athletic and assured with the ball – but the statue-esque Fernando and ageing Toure are likely to be cut loose. In their stead Guardiola will need a cultured, metronomic defensive midfielder of the Sergio Busquets variety – dubbed Barca’s most important player by the man who handed him his debut.
Julian Weigl, a player Guardiola will have seen plenty of in the Bundesliga, fits the bill; only five players have completed more passes this term (at 91.8% accuracy). Add pass-master Thiago into City’s pre-existing mix of creators and playmakers, and the side would have a Fort Knox of a midfield, flexible, fluid and capable of locking away the ball for 90 minutes, but also adept at playing the fast, one-touch, pass-and-move football that Guardiola loves.
THE MEGA-MONEY DREAM LINE-UP
With £250m in the bank and the world’s best manager incoming, City can start to dream about the possibilities for next season. Top of the club’s ambitious wishlist, even above Guardiola himself, has long been Lionel Messi. The Argentine has always reaffirmed his commitment to remain at Barcelona, and only signed a four-year contract worth €32m in 2014, but that has not stopped City from fluttering their eyelids in his direction.
The club rolled out the red carpet for Messi when he visited the club’s training base on international duty with Argentina, and now they have secured the manager who helped him develop into the world’s best player and under whom he enjoyed his most productive season ever (scoring 73 goals in the 2011-12 season).
Actually luring the Atomic Flea to the Etihad is a rather different proposition, of course, but City still plan to be active and ambitious in Guardiola’s first window. Paul Pogba is likely to be the summer’s ultimate prize and City have long been keeping tabs on him, while Leroy Sane stands out as perhaps Europe’s most outstanding teenager. Add in some much-needed defensive reinforcements and City would be able to line up with the perfect mix of experience and youth capable of playing exactly the way Guardiola wants for many years to come.
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