Will Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City regain the Premier League title? | Football news

Pep Guardiola has never regained a league title in his coaching career. To be fair, I’ve never tried it before. The only previous time he handed over the crown was in his final season in Barcelona before his sabbatical. This is new territory for him.

It’s rare for someone to get it in the modern European game. Rising manager turnover, coupled with the monopoly in France, Germany and Italy, means that few are in this position of having to make up for something lost.

There was a time when it was common. Stan Cullis and Matt Busby regained the English title. Don Revie did it and so did Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley. Howard Kendall and Kenny Dalglish traded the trophy, while George Graham recovered it with Arsenal in 1991.

Only two coaches have done that in the same period at the same club during the Premier League era. Arsene Wenger did it once with Arsenal. Sir Alex Ferguson did nothing less than five times with Manchester United. Perhaps he is the man to trust in these matters.

“You have to recover, as we have done many times,” he said before embarking on the campaign that would see him regain the title for the last time before his retirement in 2013.

“That’s our goal this year. The number one priority is to get the title back. I think if you look back at different recovery periods, when Arsenal won the title from us in 1998, we went and won the treble next year. We accepted that one. challenge and we did something about it.

“Then when Chelsea came along and the first two years became real flyers in the league, we had to change our preseason a bit to make sure we got off to a fast start. And that allowed us to get the title.” That has happened three times in the last 14 to 15 years. Recovery is very important and exactly the same applies this season. There’s no difference “.

Guardiola belatedly begins his attempt to regain the Premier League trophy on Monday night against the Sky sports Chambers with Manchester City already installed as favorites, despite Liverpool’s dominance last season.

Manuel Pellegrini knows how that goes. But his attempt to regain the title was miserable, resulting in the worst league finish and fewest points of the City’s decade.

There are some uncomfortable parallels given Guardiola’s contract situation, but the mood feels a bit different nonetheless. There is optimism that City is ready for a new cycle.

The arrival of Ferran Torres provides a new boost in attack, making up for the loss of Leroy Sane, who was unavailable last season anyway. There is hope that Phil Foden is poised to make a much bigger impact after David Silva’s departure.

Further encouragement comes from the underlying numbers that show why so many still favor City. Guardiola’s side remained the Premier League’s top scorer last season, conceding just two more goals than out-of-control champions Jurgen Klopp.

A goal difference of 67, 15 better than Liverpool, was indicative of their dominance in many of their matches and the reason they remain the most feared team in the country. No one surprises teams like Manchester City when they are singing.

Guardiola’s problem, the reason why he failed to retain the title, is what happens when he fails to achieve that fluidity. Games that don’t go their way. There were nine of them last season, nine losses to Liverpool’s three. It was the difference.

It’s why wolves are such intriguing opponents on Monday night. Nuno Espirito Santo’s team doubled over Manchester City last season. Those two games against Wolves revealed a lot about why Guardiola’s title defense fell short.

The game at Molineux in December, a 3-2 loss in which City lost a two-goal lead, was unfortunate because it presented an early red card for Ederson that left them with 10 men.

But it was not regrettable in another way. The result was a true reflection of the play: it was one of four games last season in which City’s opponents had the best chances, based on Opta’s expected goals model that rates the quality of opportunities in the game. .

That hardly ever happened in City’s back-to-back victories with Guardiola. There was a goalless draw at Crystal Palace on New Years Eve in 2017 when Ederson saved a late penalty and there was a 2-1 win over Liverpool in January 2019. That was it.

Giving up best chances in four games of 38 might not seem too damaging, but it was indicative of a loss of control that left City susceptible to the vagaries of chance.

This same expected goal data shows that there were actually 17 games where City gave up opportunities that could lead to opponents scoring at least once in the game. That’s as many games as in the previous two seasons combined.

It doesn’t mean City deserved to lose nine games, let alone 17, but it left them vulnerable. The door was left ajar and too often they were punished.

The other game against the Wolves, the 2-0 home loss at Etihad Stadium in October was a good example of this. City dominated possession throughout, but were caught on the fast break twice in the final stages with Adama Traore applying the spike both times.

Controlling the counterattack, fairly or badly, had been an essential element of Guardiola’s success at City. For two seasons, his team did brilliantly. Last season they didn’t, and when it goes wrong, it results in clear opportunities for the opposition.

The number of counterattacks that led to an opposition shot against Manchester City last season was 16, double the number in the previous two seasons. Guardiola knows what went wrong, but what he needs to figure out now is how he can stop it this time.

The signing of center-back Nathan Ake from Bournemouth should ensure there is more rhythm on the defense, be it him or Aymeric Laporte, and the kind of scenario that saw Traore running against Fernandinho and Nicolas Otamendi will never be repeated.

More needs to be done ahead to limit the exposure of the baseline, whoever is on it, and this is where Rodri is most expected to meet the defensive demands of the screen role in midfield that Fernandinho had perfected over the seasons. previous.

If Manchester City can address these issues and make the necessary defensive adjustments, then a team averaging over 100 Premier League goals per season for the past three years should have more than enough to compete for the title back.

If they can’t, Pep Guardiola’s first, and possibly last, attempt to regain the title with Manchester City will be doomed. All eyes on Molineux.