Sport
NO PEP PANIC YET
As to anyone who has managed in the Premier League will testify England’s top flight has many different challenges and that is something Pep Guardiola is experiencing right now, but it is not the time to panic – just yet.
Guardiola has gone six games without a win which the longest winless run of his glorious management career which also represents Manchester City’s longest run without a win for eight years since the meteoric rise following their Abu Dhabi takeover in 2008.
City’s Manchester derby defeat to Manchester United in the EFL Cup was a game neither manager really could afford to lose, but Guardiola could point to the fact that he played a second string side, while his counterpart Jose Mourinho fielded close to a full-strength side.
Guardiola is now in uncharted territory for the first time in his managerial career and questions are now being asked of the Spaniard.
The former Barcelona midfielder arrived on these shores widely acclaimed as the best manager in the world following his trophy-laden spells in charge of Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
The early signs were that Guardiola had taken to life in England like a duck to water, winning his first ten games in charge, but it has been a different story in the last six games.
Three defeats and three draws have brought Guardiola back to reality and shown that the cultured Spaniard cannot expect to have it all his own in England.
Every foreign coach that has come to England has faced difficulties in adapting to English style of play and Guardiola cannot expect to be any different despite his illustrious record elsewhere.
The Premier League is one of the most if not the most competitive league in Europe and the fast-paced and physically demanding nature of the English game, will pose a completely different challenge than Guardiola has ever faced before.
Wherever Guardiola has been he has normally found the answers to the questions he has faced so it should come as no surprise that the City chief is not going to hit panic stations.
Why should you panic when you are top of the Premier League and well-placed to reach the next stage of the Champions League?
But the warning signs are there for Guardiola and the alarm bells will only get louder the longer this winless run continues.
Opposition teams are now working out how to play against Guardiola’s team with the Spaniard steadfastly refusing to change his approach about how the game should be played, while there are also worrying rumours of possible discontent among popular and influential figures inside the City dressing room.
How Guardiola will come through this first real test of his managerial methods could well define City’s season with the Premier League shaping up to be one of the most competitive in recent memory as the big guns look to assert their authority again after Leicester City’s shock success last season.
Guardiola arrived at Manchester City in the summer as the final piece in the jigsaw of the club’s owners project to transform the club into one of the world’s superpowers and although the early signs of promise have dimmed in recent weeks there is no real reason to feel Guardiola will not take City to new heights this season.
Nobody could have imagined at the start of the season City’s trip to the Hawthorns to take on West Brom would hold such importance for Guardiola so early into his tenure, but failure to overcome Tony Pulis’ men will give Guardiola’s critics more ammunition to question the Spaniard’s unswerving confidence in his ethos.
City and Guardiola are not at crisis point just yet and people have been too quick to write them off, so for someone who has lifted 21 trophies in seven years surely the end of the season is only the time to judge Guardiola.
