In 2012 when Manchester City had Ferran Soriano as CEO and Txiki Begiristain became director of football, City owners had started paving the way for Pep Guardiola to move to the club in an arrangement that would make Pep, the most powerful manager that would be in charge of an English club. His dominance and power will definitely supersede Wenger’s power at the Emirate stadium.
Although City have had managers such as Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini before the arrival of Pep, it was obvious that their presence at the Etihad stadium was barely to fill the vacuum while management awaits the arrival of Pep who would become the most powerful manager the club would ever have.
Guardiola had his loyalists in charge at City since 2012 paving way for his coming some day, as the likes of Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain who are all Spanish and enjoyed working with Guardiola while he was in Barcelona where at the helm of affairs in City.

The backroom staff were not left out in the arrangement to make Guardiola acquire more protection in City, Carles Planchart (Spanish) is video analyst, Rodolfo Borrell (Spanish) is head of coaching at first team, the duo of Lorenzo Buenaventura (Spanish) and Jose Cabello (Spanish) are fitness coaches, Xabier Mancisidor (Spanish) is goalkeepers coach, the duo of Mikel Arteta (Spanish) and Domènec Torrent (Spanish) are joint assistant coaches, while Manuel Estiarte (Spanish) is also in first team.
Hence Guardiola’s men constituted 50% of members of the backroom staff, and these are men who would idolize Guardiola ahead of club’s interest.
Guardiola had a track record in his first season while in Barcelona and Bayern Munich, winning the main leagues and reaching the semifinal stage of the champions league, but its obvious that the Spaniard failed to repeat same with City, but does this in any way not raise eyebrow?May be the Spaniard would be given time to adjust to English style of football, but he is currently the highest paid coach in the world.
City crashed out of champions league after failing to reach the quarterfinal stage under Pep, and no one seem to have seen anything wrong with that, particularly for a club that reached the semifinal for the first time before the arrival of the Spaniard. It was expected that Pep should be able to take City beyond the semifinal but the performance of City was poor, particularly after scoring 5 goals in their first-leg and failed to score just 2 goals to enable them progress.
The only manager who seem to have enjoyed such protection in England is Arsene Wenger, but Wenger did not meet an already built structure like the one put in place by City ahead of Guardiola arrival. Wenger had just one French man on his backroom staff, making it possible for him to keep up with servicing friendship for him to still be at the helm of affairs.
The only realistic silverware which Pep Guardiola could win this season is the FA cup, but he must edge out Wenger if this dream must come true. The premier league is definitely out of place for Guardiola, but the Spaniard had already said that it would be bad if he does not win at least a title in his first season in England. Winning the FA Cup would mean good for Pep and bad omen for a Wenger that had seen the FA cup as his consolation. But City fans may be more understanding than an Arsenal fans that have run out of patience.
Discussion about this post