Pep’s predicament at Manchester City
The Catalan trainer has already brought in five attackers, even though City were the league’s top-scorers in 2015/16. Four of these are aged 20 or younger, while the fifth, Nolito, is an ex-Barcelona player familiar with Guardiola’s methods.
It is crystal-clear that Guardiola is attempting to change a previously-successful style of attack to one that suits him. The transition is unlikely to be smooth and might take time, much like in Mourinho’s situation.
Moreover, the midfield, arguably the most important component of Pep’s teams, will hardly be to his liking. A midfield of Fernando, Fernandinho, an ageing Yaya Toure and Fabian Delph as back-up, has the workmanship and drive of Mourinho’s game but is nowhere near the level of intelligence and creativity that the ex-Bayern Munich coach wants.
The arrival of Ilkay Gundogan from Borussia Dortmund helps matters, but certain key elements are still lacking. The cerebral defensive midfielder, integral to Guardiola sides dominating games, is missing. So was a ball-playing centre-half till City decided to spend almost 50 million Euros on a promising but error-prone Stones.
Similar to Mourinho at United, most of Guardiola’s signings wouldn’t have been needed on the other side of Manchester. Daley Blind, despite widespread skepticism, held his own last season as a ball-playing defender.
Carrick would have played the role of Sergio Busquets at Barcelona and Xabi Alonso at Bayern. Martial, Lingard, Rashford and Adnan Januzaj were more than capable of fulfilling the roles expected of signings Leroy Sane, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel Jesus and Marlos Moreno, all of whom are young and new to English football.
If anyone needs any more convincing on this (completely hypothetical) argument, kindly compare the midfields of the two sides. On one side, there is a midfield two of Fernando and Fernandinho, on the other a midfield three of Carrick, Herrera and Mata. In an ideal football world, which side would Mourinho and Guardiola choose?
One man’s treasure, as they say, is another man’s trash.
What could (and should) have been..
Back to reality then. Manchester City, since appointing ex-Barcelona man Txiki Begiristain as director of football in 2012, had been attempting to lure Guardiola. The aim was to build City as a club on the ‘Barcelona model’.
Manchester United’s administration, meanwhile, has been comical at best since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson. The club had been selling dreams - first of the Scottish ‘Chosen One’, then the ‘philosophy’ - before realizing they needed an actual top manager (not that van Gaal isn’t a good manager, but Mourinho is what the former was 15 years back).
Having lost out to Bayern Munich and Chelsea in 2013, the Manchester clubs have finally succeeded in acquiring the services of Guardiola and Mourinho. They have failed, however, in providing their star managers a conducive footballing environment to excel.
Mourinho gets a side whose playing style is the anti-thesis of his famed seven-point plan and is, quite frankly, exactly the sort of team he likes to beat. Guardiola, on the other hand, has been handed a team which attacks ferociously but defends deep by forming an offside line at the edge of the eighteen-yard box.
The clubs, it seems, were so confident in their manager’s abilities that they forgot to do their own part. Or rather, did it in such a way, that both men are now in charge of a team tailor-made for the other.
The Battle of Manchester will eventually live up to its promise, so will the rivalry of the manager’s version of Messi vs Ronaldo.
But before that, Guardiola and Mourinho will have to refine their instruments. Because at the moment, they must be wishing they could swap.
