Five weeks into his new life and things were coming easy for Pep Guardiola. With an eighth consecutive win to kickstart his Manchester City reign safely in the bag, it seemed Guardiola was already on his way to catapulting the upstarts into a whole new stratosphere. Lofty expectations were only spiralling higher with each passing game.
City had just beaten Bournemouth 4-0 in mid-September. Ilkay Gundogan, the first signing of the new dawn, scored on his Premier League debut. It was the first time in four years that a City team had not included any of Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure, David Silva or Sergio Aguero. And you wouldn’t have known.
On the back of schooling Manchester United at Old Trafford a week earlier – a gut punch for old LaLiga foe Jose Mourinho as he tried to correct post-Fergie failings across town – a feeling swept through the country that, not only was success guaranteed at City, the whole lot was about to come immediately.
So with Bournemouth dispatched, an outside fascination with Europe’s most in vogue manager and his tactics was reaching levels unbound. Guardiola walked into the Etihad Stadium’s media centre sporting a shirt, tie and a jumper. That’s what he wore in those early days. Munich chic. He was asked about the Quadruple, about whether all four trophies were the aim, and after whispering an expletive in incredulity, eight silent seconds hung in the air.
‘People believe I am going to win the Champions League because I am a really good coach,’ he answered. ‘I don’t think so, guys.’
Quite how prophetic that was would only become clear over the course of his first three-year contract. City eventually lifted the biggest prize in club football in 2023, seven years after Guardiola arrived and four seasons after he had originally planned to leave.
Just weeks into his 10-year reign at Manchester City, Pep Guardiola was asked when he would be winning the Quadruple
‘People believe I am going to win the Champions League because I am a really good coach,’ he answered. ‘I don’t think so, guys’
As he poured scorn that day in late September 2016 on the idea of repeating a feat he had achieved at Barcelona in 2009, Guardiola drew a very clear and obvious line in the sand. Do not expect miracles. Magic wands belong only in fantasy.
But what he surely did not expect was the season of struggle that followed, a season of tortuous and at times almost impossible adjustment and acclimatisation to an environment and style of football and sporting culture that occasionally seemed to utterly baffle the finest coaching mind in Europe.
Season 2016-17 – for all that it started without a ripple – was to become the first of a storied career not to yield a single piece of silverware and one where he conceded more goals than ever before as a coach. As such, it was utterly fascinating to observe.
This, after all, was a coach who had arrived on the back of three Bundesliga triumphs with Bayern Munich. With Barcelona, he had won the same number of La Liga titles and two Champions Leagues.
At 45, Guardiola was at the peak of his powers, the genius City and their Spanish executive team had been prepared to wait for. He was the coach who made winning look easy. Wasn’t he?
Ultimately his first season, which saw City finish third to champions Chelsea and crash out of Europe in February at the hands of a Monaco team boasting Kylian Mbappe, Falcao, Benjamin Mendy and Bernardo Silva, set fire to all of that and he felt it so deeply that – in his own mind – it was to be expunged from the records.
So bad had it been that he scratched it, telling friends that this was now a four-year project, due to end in 2020 instead. The hardships and blows across the eight months following that stroll against Bournemouth – including a League Cup exit to United and an FA Cup semi-final defeat by Arsenal – were so severe and so mentally discombobulating that he verbally committed to another season, ultimately signing a contract 12 months later.
Guardiola Season One was, frankly, nothing like anybody had expected.
At 45, Guardiola was at the peak of his powers, the genius City and their executive team had been prepared to wait for. He was the coach who made winning look easy. Wasn’t he?
Ultimately his first season, which saw City finish third to champions Chelsea and crash out of Europe to a Monaco team boasting the likes of Falcao (right) set fire to all of that
Manuel Pellegrini’s successor knew an overhaul was required even before turning up at work on his first day.
Having spent weeks memorising the names of non-football staff from lists he had drawn up by employees already in situ, the new boss greeted Stacey on reception by name as he breezed through the automatic glass doors. She, at least, would be safe. Not everybody was.
Guardiola had already spoken to his great friend, City director of football Txiki Begiristain, in typically forensic depth about the playing squad and what was needed. Begiristain had made it clear the refresh would have to come in phases. Guardiola, for his part, said he wished to avoid any players on Begiristain’s longlist who remained at the clubs where he had previously coached them.
But the overhaul was to encompass tactics and culture, too. To Guardiola, the flaws in his inheritance had been obvious but by the time he batted away those questions about the Quadruple after the Bournemouth afternoon, he had already become aware that the size of job may have been underestimated.
He had walked into a club that had finished fourth as Leicester City completed their historic 2016 fairytale, the board unhappy at an ‘unacceptable’ league campaign – to quote a member of the executive team at the time. There had even been fears, in mid-March, that Pellegrini wouldn’t even reach the minimum requirement of Champions League qualification. He did, on the final day, but only goal difference squeezed them in ahead of Louis van Gaal’s United.
All that appeared forgotten when a somewhat bemused Guardiola, in skinny jeans, converse trainers, blazer and t-shirt, waved to 5,800 supporters at a welcome event in July, compered by the BBC’s Sally Nugent. A hamper arrived in his office with PG Tips, a Coronation Street box set and some Oasis vinyl. He was coerced into singing the City anthem Blue Moon on stage. When confetti was fired from a cannon at the climax of his unveiling, he almost jumped out of his skin.
Yet the most serious moment of that afternoon came when he uttered the words ‘kick their ass’ during an explanation of how he would approach his new players, many of whom had phoned in their work ever since Pellegrini’s departure – and Guardiola’s appointment – had been hastily announced at a bizarre press conference five months earlier.
Guardiola felt he was looking at an overweight group of players – and told them so. Samir Nasri, Toure and Kevin De Bruyne, the latter signed the previous summer in readiness for the new era, were all ordered to sort their body fat out during pre-season. Nasri never recovered, jettisoned to Sevilla on loan. De Bruyne became the club’s greatest ever player. There were different ways of interpreting the message.
Guardiola was unveiled alongside Steph Houghton and Kelechi Iheanacho at the Academy Stadium in July 2016
Players who do not hit their target weights under Guardiola are banished from training, both as punishment and to avoid the risk of injury. Following a flurry of these misdemeanours in the opening weeks, there are only a handful of other examples to be found across the following decade, most notably midfielder Kalvin Phillips in 2022.
The body fat of City’s players is measured on the scales every single morning without exception. Whoever collates the data, usually nutritionist Tom Parry, has to be in Guardiola’s office for a predetermined time, in a move that also catches out tardiness. The results work on a traffic light system and very few players fail it, largely because once they hit amber, panic sets in.
Back in 2016 though, this presented a significant shift in styles. Guardiola could not understand why some of his collective had known about the change in coach for almost a year, with City’s pursuit the worst-kept secret in football, but had still failed to look after themselves.
At Guardiola’s new City, much would be different and changes in personnel – some significant enough to make headlines and some even at academy level – happened in a flurry across the opening months of the maiden season, starting on the ill-fated tour of China.
City were showing off their manager to a new audience, scheduled to face United in Beijing and then Borussia Dortmund in Shenzhen. A chance to capitalise on their new-found global appeal.
But what followed would present the dampest of squibs. Heavy rain meant United was postponed but long before the weather, the pitch at the imposing ‘Bird’s Nest’ was in disarray, affected by fungus. Guardiola was apoplectic. ‘Unacceptable,’ he said. ‘We didn’t come for a holiday.’
Regardless, he was still forming opinions on the other side of the world. In Beijing, Guardiola watched as Hart failed time and again to chip balls over to goalkeeping coach Xabi Mancisidor in what appeared a simple drill, with work going on behind the scenes to land Claudio Bravo from Barca.
In a conversation between Hart and Guardiola, the England goalkeeper – a stalwart for City and a key component of their successes – pleaded to stay and fight for his place. Hart maintained that his footwork would improve and vowed to learn new ways. As this went on, Guardiola began to become exasperated. ‘Joe, Joe, you don’t understand,’ he said, voiced raised. There was zero ambiguity: he would not be playing for City under the new manager.
Guardiola was furious with what he felt was a sub-standard pitch at Beijing’s Olympic Stadium
Joe Hart’s career at the very top level was over after he was unable to follow Guardiola’s instructions on playing out from the back
Hart was only 29 but that discussion effectively ended his career at the very top level. Hart has since admitted to wanting to ‘rip Pep’s head off’, although has now made peace with the decision and even interviewed Guardiola for a broadcaster in 2025.
That City were hot on Gianluigi Donnarumma a year later, the basics of Bravo’s actual goalkeeping badly letting him down, would suggest Hart’s departure was not solely down to passing through the lines and point towards a manager insistent on shaking up his senior personnel.
While still only a teenager at AC Milan, there were reservations from scouts about Donnarumma’s ball-playing ability but a move was only halted by an asking price higher than the British-record £35million City paid to Benfica for Ederson. Donnarumma, the great Italian, would finally arrive in the summer of 2025 but by then Ederson had redefined goalkeeping in England as City had hoped Bravo would.
Already 33 when he joined in that first summer, Bravo was an archetypal Guardiola No 1. But the Chilean was an early Guardiola failure. The knives were out once he dropped a cross on debut at United. A sending off for handball at Barca in the Champions League followed while he rather embarrassingly conceded from six consecutive shots during two games in January – including the nadir, a 4-0 defeat at Everton. He only saved 57 per cent of attempts on his goal that season.
Aside from Hart, sent to Torino on loan, question marks hung over two other stellar City names. Toure – at the rampaging, buccaneering heart of City’s journey to relevance under Abu Dhabi – had actually seen the end coming and all-out war broke out when City’s Champions League squad dropped in early September. No Toure. The club legend who Guardiola felt was not heeding off-the-ball instructions in training hadn’t been named in any of their first three league squads.
Toure’s combustible and free-talking agent Dimitri Seluk, an interminable problem for executives at City HQ, hit the phones to some trusted media contacts during that international break. ‘Humiliated’ read the headlines. Stewing, Guardiola struck back, insisting that Toure was not going to be considered for selection until he received an apology.
Somehow – and maybe this plays to Guardiola’s pragmatic side – a peace was brokered. Toure scored both goals of a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace on his comeback in mid-November and was probably City’s best player for the remainder of the season, going on a charm offensive with reporters that extended to embraces after matches.
Against all odds, the great Ivorian penned a new contract but an uneasy relationship endured. Frozen out once again in 2017-18, Toure was to make wildly inflammatory accusations about Guardiola’s alleged attitude towards Africans. He remorsefully wrote to the City hierarchy some time later, hoping it would be passed on to Guardiola. His apology went without acknowledgement.
Already 33 when he joined in that first summer, Claudio Bravo (centre) was an archetypal Guardiola No 1. But the Chilean was an early Guardiola failure
Club legend Yaya Toure, who Guardiola felt was not heeding off-the-ball instructions in training, was not named in any of their first three league squads
Shortly after Seluk’s initial outburst and still unbeaten, City headed to Swansea for a double header, in the Carabao Cup and then the league. Toure licked his wounds at home while injury clouds circled over Vincent Kompany.
During a five-day residency at five-star Celtic Manor – venue for the 2010 Ryder Cup – Guardiola was in his element, the life and soul of a bonding barbecue, wanting to know the personal stories of all his staff. They had seen some of this in China, too.
‘Tactically he is a magician but the human side comes first,’ one staff member said. ‘The chef wasn’t taking corners that Saturday at Swansea but he must have felt just as important.’
Kompany, however, was metaphorically miles away. The Wednesday night cup game was his first appearance under Guardiola. He finished the game but suffered a groin problem in the final moments. The club captain had been mismanaged the season before so City took this comeback slowly, giving him all the time required. To suffer another issue straight away came as a crushing blow for the Belgian.
Kompany held reservations about Guardiola’s plan for a three-at-the-back system, discussing with the manager how it might not suit him, and frustration at his circumstances boiled over during a session on the eve of September’s Manchester derby when he came to blows with fellow defender Aleksandar Kolarov.
With Hart and Nasri gone, Toure exiled – plus Gael Clichy, Pablo Zabaleta and Bacary Sagna effectively surplus to requirements by November – Kompany was quite right to fear for the future. Ultimately, he would do three years with Guardiola, a mountain of a centre half who lifted two more league titles before heading to Anderlecht in 2019 as a player-manager. And when fit, he was a colossus, remembered in part for the title-defining long range strike to beat Leicester City weeks before his exit.
In those early months in Manchester, Guardiola pushed on against the headwinds inevitably caused by the changes he was making. Some repercussions were predictable.
That autumn, for example, one senior player held court with reporters at a Manchester hotel to privately denigrate Guardiola’s personality and his methods. He let loose on how he had not warmed to key components of the manager’s staff and complained fiercely that they wouldn’t speak English.
Several formerly key players were cast aside early on under Guardiola, including Gael Clichy (second left) and Hart
Vincent Kompany (right) had his reservations about Guardiola’s style but would go on to become a crucial part of the first two title wins under the Catalan
Meanwhile, the Spanish centre forward Nolito – signed for £14m in summer 2016 – moaned that team talks weren’t being translated into Spanish. Proof, perhaps, that when change is coming, those who wish to, will always find something on which to pin their unhappiness.
‘My daughter’s face has changed colour – it looks like she’s been living in a cave,’ Nolito said of the Manchester climate as he plotted an escape back home. He also criticised cliques within the squad, claiming there was no unity.
Yet while Nolito – who left a year later having scored four league goals – peered out of the window at the clouds, Guardiola was busy forging a spirit that would stand the test of time and heavily contribute to the record-breaking Centurions campaign of 2017-2018.
Version 2016 of Guardiola had a habit. He would make the journey to the club’s administration building, a short walk from his office at City’s sprawling compound across from the stadium in east Manchester, to perch on desks of random employees. He’d ask what they did and who they were. Many were aghast. Back over the other side of the car park, they grew even closer. ‘This was like going to work to see your mates,’ one first-team staff member says. ‘Pep would come down asking questions about your family. It was just a joy.’
Forming this seemed meticulous. There was a running theme during bonding nights at Tapeo & Wine, a tapas restaurant on Deansgate owned by the father of United playmaker Juan Mata and central enough for everybody to attend with ease.
Guardiola and his immediate backroom staff devoured the food. The wider team behind them were largely made up of locals and the English staff, mostly from the medical department, often made a point that they weren’t here for the cuisine. They were only here to drink.
The whole place would be booked out for City. Nutritionist Silvia Tremoleda, credited with fixing Lionel Messi’s fitness problems at Barca, went over to check the restaurant’s suitability for a Christmas meal for the players but the little spot, on one corner of the city’s longest road, was mostly used for nights out.
There was a karaoke machine that suffered a hammering by staff. Parry, who would take over from Tremoleda in 2021, is renowned for his renditions of Michael Jackson hits. Guardiola encouraged dancing and lots of it. His staff could even watch big matches in the room downstairs. Friendships were formed in Mata’s slice of Spain until Guardiola went in on a Catalan restaurant, Tast, just round the corner in 2019. Both have since shut.
Guardiola at Tast with City CEO Ferran Soriano, chef Paco Perez and former director of football Txiki Begiristain
The evenings out were so regular that staff joked they could not keep up. Despite warnings to take a taxi, Guardiola always walked home in the dead of night to his lavish apartment building at No 1 Deansgate.
Begiristain, assistant Domenec Torrent and first-team coach Mikel Arteta were in there as well. Arteta, now manager of Arsenal, was hired for his understanding of the Premier League – of opponents, managers and even specific stadia – and threw himself into the camaraderie that Guardiola was manufacturing against the backdrop of iffy results.
The No 1 was only a temporary solution for Guardiola, who wanted a view of Manchester’s industrial vista. A complex named City Suites was under construction, opening in February 2017, and he took a gigantic space on the 14th floor.
Guardiola would find it strange when hotel customers at the nearby Premier Inn peered over to his window, the two parties staring blankly at each other. Allies helped him settle and Begiristain had taken Guardiola’s wife, Cristina, to look at schools for the three children.
These preparations had been ongoing for over 12 months before Guardiola arrived on the first day with one confused security guard unaware of who he was and telling the world’s best manager to try another gate to gain entry to the training ground.
In terms of the football, Guardiola had thought about how things ended at his previous club Bayern – engaging football, three Bundesliga titles but a gnawing angst at how the Champions League magic deserted him. In Bavaria, he hadn’t managed to progress beyond three semi-finals. Spanish clubs did for him each time and he arrived in Manchester carrying specific regret at ignoring his own philosophy before losing 4-0 at home to Real Madrid in 2014.
At City, there was to be no compromising. Or so he told himself.
The big idea going into the first season was how best to accelerate a team spirit that had dissipated in the months prior to his unveiling. Wi-Fi in the training ground dressing room was cut, to make sure players spoke to each other. Amusingly, the ban only lasted three days. Not because of a revolt but because the medical department were unable to send important files from a nearby office.
Mikel Arteta was hired for his understanding of the Premier League – of opponents, managers and even specific stadia – and threw himself into the camaraderie that Guardiola was building
Guardiola had to pivot, players told to leave their phones outside instead, and to this day some sound sceptical at how weak the signal appears to be inside that area of the training complex.
The squad were made to eat breakfast and lunch together, sometimes even evening meals – all of which were free of sugar and gluten. White fish featured prominently on the menu, with mixed bags of nuts handed to players after matches. After they had flown to Sweden for a friendly against Arsenal, losing 3-2, Guardiola admonished the airline for the presentation of in-flight meals.
Some moves were less easy to make. City had designed their new training ground – the City Football Academy – meticulously and prior to its opening in 2014 made something of the fact first-team players and up and coming academy stars would inhabit the same building.
Guardiola changed that, the Elite Development squad moved out of the first-team environment because staff felt they required more space. That building was invite-only, completely off-limits to anybody on the outside.
The CFA also boasts living quarters, akin to a budget hotel, and Guardiola scrapped the overnight stays that were commonplace under Pellegrini before games. Guardiola wanted them to spend as much time with families as possible and was forced into denying that he’d imposed a ‘no sex after midnight’ rule.
Changes continued, with ground staff told to paint lines on a training pitch to define the ‘half space’ in between the centre circle and penalty box, an area Guardiola would concentrate on to improve their attacking during relentless sessions. All grass was to be cut at 19mm, just as in Catalonia and Bavaria, only for him to be told that the climate wouldn’t allow for that. They eventually negotiated at 23mm.
One battle Guardiola did win without much fight was regarding the netting of the Etihad’s goals. A fashionable black netting irked the manager, who argued strongly that the colour hindered his forwards.
This came to a head after 18 shots and 71 per cent possession in his sixth home game only yielded a 1-1 draw against Middlesbrough. That was the third consecutive 1-1 home draw immediately following the Bournemouth win and that short-lived conversation about winning all four available trophies. The first signs, on reflection, that this was going to be an altogether more difficult campaign that many had presumed.
Guardiola even transformed the pitches at City’s training ground, making out the ‘half-spaces’ (see pitch to the bottom right of main hub) in his first season
Black netting was also in Guardiola’s sights, after a 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough in November 2016
Ground staff insisted the netting made the frame more prominent but Guardiola wasn’t having it. The nets were changed to white and it worked, although not in the way he intended. Chelsea went there and won 3-1 in the very next Premier League fixture.
Fernandinho and Aguero both saw red in stoppage time that day, the striker for an unsavoury lunge at David Luiz. Aguero might have scored 10 Premier League goals by that point in early December yet also knew that in a month’s time, teenage Brazilian Gabriel Jesus was landing from Palmeiras. Much like Kompany’s training episode, insecurities were threatening to boil over and Aguero was to miss three matches for violent conduct.
A developing theme of the season was defensive disarray and Guardiola was sensitive about it. In one press conference an overly expressive Guardiola leaped to shield John Stones from public blame by claiming the centre half had ‘more b***s’ than anyone sat in the room.
That apart, Aguero – the charismatic, dashing last-minute hero of the 2012 title win – was becoming the story of a difficult campaign and Manchester hummed with conjecture about the star striker’s relationship with the new boss.
Those inside the dressing room say the professional stand-off between the pair was not easy for anyone involved but the idea of a falling out is disputed. Aguero could not understand why he needed to defend with vigour from the front, something that had never been asked of him before. Guardiola, understandably, was unbending.
Aguero would often seek out journalists after matches to offer little nods and winks that he’d rather his situation change, while he was almost sold to Chelsea later that year. He decided to stay after being persuaded by chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak and it was just as well.
Later crowned the club’s greatest-ever goalscorer, the Argentinian flourished once more after he and Guardiola came to understand each other, a process that began during a meal between the pair at the Italian eatery Salvi’s (near the window, easy to photograph), where the boss laid out what was expected of his No 10.
Aguero plundered 95 goals in his first three seasons under Guardiola and eventually defended in much the same way as Jesus, who never became the natural successor that everybody had hoped. Ironically, that 2016-17 campaign, with its tetchiness and bruised egos, was the most prolific of Aguero’s entire career.
Sergio Aguero (centre) was becoming the story of a difficult campaign and Manchester hummed with conjecture about the star striker’s relationship with the new boss
Gabriel Jesus was arriving in January to rival Aguero. Much like Kompany’s training episode, insecurities were threatening to boil over
The early winter Chelsea defeat featuring that Aguero red card came towards the end of a run of only four victories in 15 games across all competitions, a spell that well and truly introduced Guardiola to the unique rigours of an English season.
It all began when – after winning their first 10 games of the season – they played out a scarcely believable 3-3 Champions League draw with Brendan Rogers’ Celtic on a night when City were almost swallowed whole by the Parkhead crowd.
A decade on, one staff member recalls the mood that evening and how they now believe it shaped the dominance to come. In a nutshell, the reaction was as if they’d lost 3-0.
‘Dead,’ the staffer says now. ‘Wow, this is a change.’
David Silva, the great City midfielder, spent 10 years at the club and four under Guardiola. At times, he feels like he is still processing it all.
‘When we lost or things weren’t going the way they should, they always wanted to have a meeting to see what was happening,’ Silva says now.
‘That’s a sign that people care and want to win. At that time, whenever something small happened we were always discussing it and not letting it pass. Sometimes teams let one thing lead to another, but I think it’s important to talk about it and try to take action.’
There was a lot of talking as City bumped and banged through that first Guardiola season. The real effect of change would come later, in the most glorious of ways. First City had to go backwards to go forwards and their manager often leaned into introspection. On occasion, Guardiola’s reaction to setbacks was extreme.
Guardiola fumes at the end of a 3-3 draw at Celtic Park in September 2016
For example, Guardiola confided in biographer Marti Perarnau that he was a ‘nervous wreck’ before a 1-1 November draw with Borussia Monchengladbach, saying the build-up had been ‘torture’. Prior to that, in the October, he admitted to fearing the sack before facing Barcelona at home – they won 3-1 – having lost by four in the Nou Camp two weeks earlier. Beset by his team’s problems, he even cancelled a trip to Munich for Oktoberfest over the November international break.
This was a period that would define a season to a degree, a league campaign Guardiola actually declared over at Goodison Park in January after that 4-0 reverse that saw Stones look a shell of himself on a first return to Everton.
Three days later, with Guardiola still pressing ahead with the nights out and bonding exercises, the entire squad and staff were invited to Manchester’s gaudy Printworks complex to watch the movie La La Land in celebration of the Catalan’s 46th birthday.
There was no shortage of noise at the time. The 2-2 home draw with Spurs that followed the Everton bashing meant City had won only nine of the 23 games that followed Celtic’s ending of the 10-game winning sequence in late September.
It was proving to be a hard winter and the Daily Mirror’s columnist Stan Collymore reached for his pen to accuse Guardiola of being ‘deluded’ for not changing his principles in the aftermath of a 4-2 defeat at Leicester City, one of the worst displays of his entire reign.
‘I’m not a coach for the tackles,’ Guardiola said after a defeat, lent some credibility by two late consolations. Many felt those comments – delivered with a derisory snort – directly and purposefully pitted him against the sanctity of English football.
In reality, no professional manager coaches tackling but here stood the greatest of his generation picking fights with those who were as equally withering about his own apparent lack of adaptability. Daggers seemed to have been drawn between the newbie and the Premier League establishment and, for as long as it lasted, it made for fascinating viewing.
In 2020, Richard Keys and Andy Gray even offered the opinion from their Qatar TV bolthole that Guardiola should bring in their old friend Sam Allardyce as a defensive coach. As far as we know, that call was never made.
City’s title dreams were expunged at Goodison Park, with a then-record 4-0 defeat for Guardiola
Guardiola does occasionally need a bit of animosity to get him going and the truth is that all the fuss deflected from his real worries over the performances of the big summer signings, Stones and German winger Leroy Sane. Gundogan, meanwhile, did his ACL and missed almost the entire campaign.
As much as the Premier League was learning to live with Guardiola, he was also learning how to exist in this country. Maybe he became an honorary Brit when the trains presented an unlikely foe.
One left without them after a win at Palace, City’s bus having been caught in London traffic en route to Euston. Severely agitated and two minutes late, Guardiola wanted to know why the Virgin train had not waited for their distinguished guests. It’s plausible that he was unaware that City were booked on a public service and the ramifications are felt to this day. With Guardiola convinced that long coach journeys stiffen up players’ muscles, City tend to mix up their domestic travel between trains – when they feel they can rely on them – and flights.
The refereeing, it must be said, is not something Guardiola easily hopped on board with either.
‘I still don’t understand referees in this country,’ he said memorably after beating Burnley 2-1 before Christmas.
Incredulity at officiating remains a constant 10 years on, although Guardiola has rarely been critical if City have dropped points in a game. Away from the cameras is something of a different matter.
Guardiola and his players, for example, crowded around a Sky Sports monitor during half-time of a 3-1 defeat at Liverpool in 2019, flabbergasted at the decision to allow Fabinho’s opener despite a Trent Alexander-Arnold handball in his own area earlier in the move. Guardiola has long taken umbrage with officiating at Anfield, dating back to the Champions League quarter-final in 2018. Guardiola can occasionally head to the referee’s room to argue calls.
By his final year in situ, Guardiola would pay plenty of attention to Ref Watch on Sky Sports News, the Monday morning segment with ex-referee Dermot Gallagher, to take the temperature of how pundits viewed the league’s contentious calls.
The refereeing in England, it must be said, is not something Guardiola easily hopped on board with
And he kept notes. That Gallagher backed referee Sam Barrott’s decision not to award a penalty for Fabian Schar’s lunge on Phil Foden away at Newcastle in November 2025, before holding a different opinion on a similar incident the week later, was jotted down.
On the same show, he even noticed that ex-Tottenham midfielder Jamie O’Hara had flipflopped on an opinion around a possible Dominic Solanke foul on Marc Guehi as Spurs scored during a draw three months later. He didn’t reference O’Hara by name, presumably because he doesn’t know who he is, and instead labelled him ‘the guy’.
Sky Sports News is beamed on countless large televisions across City’s training base. Some of Guardiola’s staff have privately queried the wisdom of this.
The canteen is the place where they will stand around, gesticulating at the TVs. Then it becomes the conversation over coffee. Then it’s suddenly deep-seated.
The anger at decisions through January and into February of his 10th year led to the unusual step of referees’ chief Howard Webb heading into the City Football Academy.
Webb was there for hours, to discuss recent decisions that went against them. Webb was seen deep in conversation with a club analyst following the 2026 FA Cup final.
Usually the two parties keep their distance. Guardiola is the only manager in the entire league not to turn up to PGMO meetings and never has done, pre-season or mid-season. He does this job his own way and that first season, the torture and the intrigue of it all, proved that Manchester City’s messiah was not to be cowed.
By the time it ended with flourish – 15 goals spread across four straight league wins – the scale of the task ahead was clear. There had been a Premier League uptick on Pellegrini’s final season – 12 more points and four fewer defeats – but they were still 15 points off the pace set by Antonio Conte’s Chelsea – who beat them twice – and the cups had been disappointing.
Guardiola kept notes on what he saw as hypocrisy – such as Dermot Gallagher’s opinion that this Fabian Schar lunge on Phil Foden away at Newcastle in November 2025 was not a penalty
Guardiola’s debut season ended trophyless for the first time in his career – but it would not be long before the silverware rolled in
Some of the commentary was laced with relish while Guardiola’s allies accused the English media of wanting the new City manager to fail.
That wasn’t true. It merely felt spellbinding to observe Guardiola’s struggles as, deep down, nobody really expected them to last. And they didn’t.
Guardiola’s City won next season’s title at a canter, racking up 100 Premier League points in one of the most astonishing displays of dominance ever seen on these shores.
COMING TOMORROW: Read part three of Pep and Man City – The Untold Decade: The journey to the Treble
