Douglas Higginbottom wrote:I wonder what Ashton and Custis will have to say in the morning. No doubt emphasising what the likes of the Mirror say rather than what Pep says
This is what Holt had to say.
Suspicion and scorn fell fast upon Pep Guardiola last week. His fancy foreign goalkeeper made a critical mistake, his Manchester City team were dismantled by Barcelona and suddenly one of the greatest managers of the modern era found himself labelled by some as a charlatan.
They had been waiting for this ever since Guardiola took charge of City in the summer and now all that scarcely suppressed suspicion and envy came tumbling out. City had dropped a few points in the league and, at the Nou Camp, they had been humiliated by Lionel Messi.
Claudio Bravo’s error and subsequent red card was just the excuse many needed to get stuck into Guardiola. Thoroughly rattled by the notion that a goalkeeper ought be able to pass the ball to one of his own players, they seemed relieved that Guardiola had suffered a setback. The fact that he was only a few games into his tenure mattered little to them.
Not quite as good as he thinks he is, the argument went. Not quite as clever as all those hipsters would have you believe. Can’t cope with the intensity of our league. Fine when he’s got Messi in his side but not so smart when he hasn’t. Tactically naive. Not suited to the hurly-burly of the Premier League. An impostor, basically.
But here’s the thing about Guardiola and the way his teams play the game: I would rather watch one of his failures than 1,000 of the successes of the pragmatists that crowd English club football. I would rather see him try, fail and try again than watch him cleave to the stodgy mass of normality.
If I could only have attended one match in this past calendar year —notwithstanding Leicester’s amazing run to the league title — it would have been, without question, City’s victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford on September 10.
Because it was the best English club performance I have seen for a number of years and because its confidence and its eloquence and its level of technical accomplishment felt like a direct challenge to the old order, the old way of doing things. Can’t cope with our intensity? That performance was on a whole new level of intensity.
On Friday, in an impassioned defence of his methods that lasted more than half an hour, Guardiola denied it had ever been his intention to change our game. But whether it is his intention or not, if he succeeds, change it he will.
It is better to watch a coach like him suffering the highs and lows that boldness brings than it is to lionise the empty victories of flatline safety-first football philosophies that brought us occasions like last Monday’s stultifying draw between Manchester United and Liverpool.
Manchester City players show their dejection on a miserable night at the Nou Camp
Sure, we can praise Jose Mourinho for organising a defensive masterclass that night but can we say what United will stand for under him other than trying to grind out victory?
As many have pointed out, it is hard to say what United’s identity is now but we already know that if we go to watch City this season, we will see a team that will try to thrill us. Nothing displays our football DNA more clearly than when a coach like Guardiola arrives in the Premier League and tries to do something a little bit differently.
Playing it out from the back is still regarded as something effete. Because the technical ability of English players, in particular, is still so primitive, encouraging the goalkeeper to pass the ball is viewed as an accident waiting to happen. It brings out the ‘Get Rid Of It’ primal scream in English Football Man.
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho looks on during Monday's match against Liverpool
Guardiola is not alone in trying to innovate in the English club game and many will dispute the idea that he can revolutionise the way we play but his pedigree and his early work at City, who play Southampton at the Etihad today, suggest that he could be about to implement the biggest step-change in our football since Arsene Wenger’s arrival at Arsenal 20 years ago.
Wenger was mocked, too, of course, both for being a football purist and for changing the refuelling habits of our elite players.
Many said that he would never succeed, that he would be defeated by our culture, but he proved them wrong and now his attitude represents orthodoxy in the Premier League.
Guardiola’s attempt at change is happening on the pitch. We have seen that already in some of City’s performances. It is there in the unbending commitment to the passing game, right the way through the side, it is there in the manic determination to win the ball back fast and high up the pitch and it is there in the belief that this style is capable of winning the Premier League.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has been mocked for being a football purist
We may not always see it but we are desperately resistant to real change on the pitch. Remember when Rio Ferdinand emerged as a young star and it was obvious that if ever there was an Englishman born to play as sweeper, it was him? We all know how that worked out.
He ended up as a conventional centre-half for Manchester United. He was an extremely good conventional centre-half but there was always a sense that an opportunity had been lost. Ferdinand became a victim of our conservative English football order.
That conservatism is one of the things that holds us back. That fear of risk. That unwillingness to countenance real change. That suspicion of change. That desire to shout it down and hound it out. That’s what’s happening to Guardiola now, as we knew it would.
Guardiola probably knew it, too, but he is a football evangelist and he will remain resolute. ‘I’m not going to change,’ he said on Friday. ‘If it’s not going well in the future, I’ll go home.’
For all manner of reasons, let’s hope that is not any time soon. Whatever Guardiola says about the impact he hopes to have, his arrival here represents a chance to take a great leap forward.
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 9:09 am
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