Alongside Jurgen Klopp, there is no doubt that this has been the era of Pep Guardiola in the Premier League. Liverpool pushed Manchester City and Manchester City pushed Liverpool — in more recent times, Arsenal has joined the race too.
The landscape, though, is changing. Klopp has gone and is now set to embark on a non-coaching career with the Red Bull group, and while Arne Slot has settled in as smoothly as anyone — himself included — could have hoped, things are different.
At Manchester City, regardless of what the outcome is in its court case with the Premier League — in which it has been charged 115 times for various rules allegedly being broken — things could soon be altered for other reasons as well. Guardiola, inside the final year of his current contract, is yet to provide assurances that he will be sticking around beyond the end of the campaign.
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Heading into this weekend, Guardiola refused to be drawn any further on whether or not the exit of Txiki Begiristain, his close associate at Manchester City who announced last week that he would be stepping down as director of football, would impact his own future.
“A part of me is leaving. A friend of mine,” Guardiola said in his press conference ahead of facing Wolves. “One of the, I would say, the architects to create one of the best teams ever in Barcelona and now here.
“I knew the decision for a long time… personally, he will be missed, but for the confidence, for the trust, especially in the bad moments because he makes me incredibly balanced in my job. I am so energetic — when the going is bad, I want to destroy everything, and all the time he said: ‘See you tomorrow, take a coffee’.”
During the international break, Guardiola told the Italian chat show Che Tempo Che Fa that “anything can happen” when it comes to his future. And he refused to expand further on those thoughts ahead of this weekend. “I have to decide. I have not taken a decision, when I do I will inform you,” he said, via ESPN. “There is no news, I have nothing to add.”
Guardiola has already admitted that the end is nearer than the beginning at Manchester City, and there are whispers that Hugo Viana, the man who will replace Begiristain, could bring Ruben Amorim with him from Sporting CP if he needs to hire a new head coach. The pair have an excellent relationship from their time together in Portugal.
Even Guardiola has suggested that Manchester City should have a plan to succeed him given that “sooner or later, it will happen”. “I’m pretty sure the club have options when Pep will leave,” he said. “They have to prepare.”
While Liverpool has already shown that it isn’t impossible to move from one era to the next when you have a strong squad and a good structure behind the scenes, losing Guardiola will be a big test for Manchester City. It doesn’t lack resources, but having the coach of a generation at the helm has pushed it to new heights and allowed it to bring in players that may not otherwise have gone there even for persuasive amounts of cash.
It would be reasonable to think that the Premier League title race would be a little more even without Guardiola in the picture, too. Without Liverpool, Manchester City would have found things incredibly easy during Guardiola’s tenure — but even with the Reds pressing hard for the majority of that time, the Etihad side has won six of the last seven league titles. Often by a single point or the finest margin, it was only Liverpool that ensured the English top flight didn’t become a Bundesliga-like procession.
Manchester City brought Begiristain in to set up the club in the shape of Guardiola years before the Catalan ended up at the helm. It would, therefore, not be unrealistic to think that whoever comes next has a huge task ahead of them to redefine that and work out what comes next. Slot and Liverpool have shown that it is possible — but that is not to say that it won’t have its challenges.
Understandably, while Manchester City fans wait nervously for news on what comes next for Guardiola, Liverpool supporters will be doing the same as well. Klopp has already gone; it might not be long until his biggest rival packs it in too. That could only be viewed as a boost for the Reds — and they are better placed than anyone to understand why.
