Guardiola wakes up Manchester City to get back on track against Arsenal | city of manchester
“Be there again” is Pep Guardiola's mantra and describes how his city of manchester Players tirelessly recharge and return to compete for big prizes during the era-defining coach's tenure.
Guardiola's praise is not for the physical talents of a brilliant team but for the ability to maintain mental hunger despite serial successes. Last year's treble offered the biggest test yet: could Kevin De Bruyne, Ederson, Kyle Walker, Rúben Dias, Phil Foden, Bernardo Silva, Erling Haaland and others return to pre-season training and look forward to another nine months? Work hard with the goal of being the best team in Europe and still be there again?
The answer is a resounding yes, at least so far. To reach the semi-finals of the FA Cup, the quarterfinals of the champions league and being one point behind Arsenal when they arrive at the Etihad Stadium for Sunday's penalty shoot-out is another impressive display.
But City can still fail, which adds a deeper and more resonant dimension to the match. If the Gunners leave Manchester with three points, we may have witnessed a discarding of their label of suitors, and the fascination will be how City's success-soaked players respond.
A brilliant streak of maximum points among the nine finalists first division Games would be a challenging answer, but possibly not enough.
The rest of the season would be approximately Arsenal keeping their nerve (and a goal difference higher than Liverpool) in a confrontation that includes visits to Tottenham and Manchester United. After City, they will face Luton (home), then Brighton (away), Aston Villa (home), Wolves (away), Chelsea (home), Spurs, Bournemouth (at home), United and close to receiving Everton. Last season's strangulation is still fresh in Arsenal's memory, but beating the world champions, on their home turf in front of their own fans, would be a huge boost.
Guardiola will use all his cunning to remind his players how good and brave they are as he coaches them in City's remaining matches. These begin with the visit of Aston Villa on Wednesday, then Crystal Palace (away), Luton, Chelsea (home), Brighton, Nottingham Forest (away), Wolves (home), Fulham (away) and West Ham at the Etihad Stadium on the final day, with a trip to Tottenham (postponed for the FA Cup semi-final) also fitting in somewhere. There are also the two Champions League games against Real Madrid (April 9 and 17) plus a date at Wembley against Chelsea (April 21).
This sequence makes this 2023-24 phase as exhausting and congested as the corresponding one 12 months ago. Is this, then, where season after season of rising to the challenge could finally overtake the City team? After all, they are humans and every empire begins to decline at some point. Guardiola, however, is the the boss (big boss) of this generation due to a restless football brain and an expert ability to read your charges and reset their attitude. He often organizes media briefings to design the latter.
Last season, at the end of January, it was the “happy flowers” rant before the race to the treble. This season, after the 1-0 defeat against Aston Villa, this is how he and his group had it”lived like a cat“too long. This was Guardiola's classic, after a run of three draws and one defeat as City fell six points behind Arsenal. The next 22 games, and counting, City are unbeaten.
In early December, he remembered what can happen if results go wrong. “You're unbeatable and then you can't win a game, out of nowhere,” she said. “Maybe first for me, I need that challenge to prove myself, that I'm a good coach, to help the players get through that situation.”
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from the city All or nothing An Amazon documentary showed how intense Guardiola can be. Working with him is a constant and unrelenting challenge, and a central part of his headline acts, De Bruyne, Stones, Silva, Foden, Ederson, Walker, Rodri and Dias, have been for several years. While Foden was in the youth ranks, when Guardiola took over he inherited De Bruyne and bought the Stones, and has coached them for seven full seasons in the Premier League.
De Bruyne has missed 18 games this season with a hamstring injury suffered in the opening weekend win at Burnley but he still has 223 appearances or 16,862 minutes, 75% of the maximum he could have played. Stones, who has suffered more injuries and received less playing time due to a loss of form, has accumulated 12,054 minutes in 158 games.
Ederson (244 appearances, 21,721) and Silva (224, 15,432), who arrived a summer after Guardiola, lead the table. Foden, who debuted at the age of 17 in November 2017, has 157 and 9,167 minutes.
This snapshot of attrition crystallizes how remarkable what Guardiola has pushed City to do, and that couldn't be achieved simply by a sergeant-major act. As he himself says: “It comes from themselves, it is not a question of motivation; you can't do it after eight years, it should be: 'I need to motivate.' They have something inside that is a fire to compete; Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”
Winning (games and titles) is also a vital ingredient that maintains the precarious and fine-tuned balance of the City machine. Victory is the intoxicant that causes the desire for more of the same supreme sensation it produces. That is why, in a season in which City are being pressured by two rivals, the spoils when Arsenal visit are so crucial and, perhaps, will define their title and their treble hopes. And where Manchester City could be heading beyond this season.
