The unseemly haste to write Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City obituary was a contemptible concoction comprising amnesia, ignorance, spite and wishful thinking.
In the wake of his team’s meek Champions League surrender in the Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday night, any desire to see off the all-conquering City manager is as desperate as it is objectionable.
As City crumbled to a 3-1 defeat, vicious taunts rained down on City’s Catalan boss mocking him in the wake of his well-publicized split from his wife, Cristina, after 30 years together.
The malicious chants of the Madridistas aligned to parts of the English media suggesting Pep is – after nine seasons at the Etihad – something of a busted flush, should come with a health warning.
Featuring in Madrid’s coat of arms since the 13th century, the bear is a symbol of the Spanish capital with the famous statue, El Oso y el Madrona (The Bear and the Strawberry Tree) in Puerto del Sol, a prime tourist attraction.
In American Native cultures, the bear is synonymous with courage, strength, resourcefulness, wisdom and intuition – traits easily attributable to Guardiola in football terms.
Those who dare to ‘poke the bear’ usually get their comeuppance, something which doesn’t bode well for the Pep haters.
With the Champions League gone, a fifth consecutive Premier League title out of reach and, if City draw a blank in both the FA Cup and the newly pumped-up Club World Championship, it will represent Pep’s worst season in 17 years in topflight club management.
In his own vernacular he would reflect pragmatically on a season where City have been crippled with injuries and handicapped by a misjudged summer transfer window: “It is what it is!”
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Pep believed his 4-In-A-Row Premier League Champions - littered with either up and coming thirty somethings, or 30+ year veterans – had enough gas in the tank for one more title tilt, before a radical refresh and injection of youth, pace and energy.
He admits he got it wrong.
City were naive not to have a top-quality understudy for Rodri, hopelessly misjudging the effect of losing the Ballon d’Or winner.
The City hierarchy also failed to factor in fatigue – both physically and mentally and wear and tear – on the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones, Nathan Ake, Bernardo, Kyle Walker, Manu Akanji, Ruben Dias and Phil Foden.
In far too many games City have been running on fumes – a debilitating combination of ageing legs and niggling injuries – whittling away at their ability to press opponents or maintain any degree of intensity in the final quarter of matches.
Fair to say shit happens, but there’s no evidence to suggest it’ll keep happening.
January signings Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis, Nico Gonzalez, Omar Marmoush and Juma Bah (loaned to RC Lens for the rest of the season) with an average age of 21 years and 4 months, is the first tranche of incomings.
Argentine attacking midfielder, Claudio Echeverri (19), will also finally arrive at the Etihad this month after signing for £12.4m in January 2024.
The £180m winter transfer spend will almost certainly be eclipsed this summer as Pep conducts a root and branch overhaul of a group of players who have served him superbly.
He gave a clear indication of his thoughts when he said: “We have to sit down with the doctors, physios, players, agents and be clear that some of the players cannot sustain playing every three days.
“Always we compete in the Champions League until the latter stages in the quarter-finals, semi-finals. Not this season.
“The reality is for the future, if we want to be there again we need players fit and available…it’s so demanding because the teams are quicker, faster, stronger and we cannot handle it right now.”
It doesn’t augur well for some of City’s finest players of recent times, players who have been integral in record-breaking campaigns, namely Stones, Ake, De Bruyne and Grealish.
It’s akin to having a fleet of supercars; a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Rolls Royce and an Aston Martin which spend more time undergoing repairs in the garage than out on the road.
If that quartet were to leave, along with Kyle Walker to AC Milan, Bernardo possibly back to Benfica his boyhood club, Ederson and Kovacic to the huge salaries on offer in Saudi Arabia, it would denude City of most of their legendary Treble winners.
Rodri, Akanji, Dias, Haaland, Foden and Gundogan would be the only remainers of the team who triumphed over Inter Milan on that balmy night in Istanbul, less than two years ago.
Gundogan was a key component in the Treble winning team – not least for his brace in the FA Cup Final win over United – but his return after one season in Barcelona has been, by his previous standards, underwhelming.
The option in his contract of a second season will inevitably be triggered by the number of games he’s played in 2024/25. City’s crippling injury list has meant he’s played far more minutes than would’ve been anticipated.
Silky Ilkay will be 35 in October. He has an abundance of experience and football intelligence so keeping him around as a squad player wouldn’t be a bad thing, certainly as a mass exodus of the old guard unfolds. He could also be a handy addition to Pep’s coaching staff.
With the possibility of other squad players being shipped out, as well as Kalvin Phillips not returning (Leeds being promoted to the Premier League might help) the wage bill would be slashed dramatically.
The transfer fees being paid to City wouldn't be huge for some of the veteran stars, but City have a decent enough war chest amassed over years of healthy net spending.
It's pure speculation, albeit not wildly speculative, as to who City are targeting to get them back to the pinnacle of both the Premier League and Champions League.
Defensively Andrea Cambiasso (25) at Juventus and former City Academy graduate Jeremie Frimpong (24) of Bayer Leverkusen, would add energy in the full back positions.
Frimpong's much coveted team mate, Florian Wirtz (21), would be a huge statement signing and deemed the successor to De Bruyne. City would more than likely need to pay in excess of the club record £100m paid to Aston Villa for Grealish in 2021, but would would face stern competition from Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
An alternative target could be De Bruyne's Belgian international team mate Charles De Ketelaere (23) from Atalanta. At 6ft 4in tall his big move from Club Brugge to AC Milan in 2022 didn't go to plan, making just 32 appearances without scoring.
A loan switch to Atalanta in 2023 saw him flourish with ten goals in 35 games and the Europa League winners made the move permanent last summer.
De Ketelaere's career pattern isn't dissimilar to that of De Bruyne's, where a big money move (in the case of KDB from Genk to Chelsea) didn't work out, before he flourished in the Bundesliga at Wolfsburg and then switched to City.
It’s not as if Pep hasn’t transformed City’s fortunes in the past, with lightning speed and precision.
Coming off the back of his first, and thus far only, trophyless campaign – he sold his four recognized full backs; Sagna, Zabaleta, Kolarov and Clichy with a combined age of 128 years, plus 31-year-old makeshift right back Jesus Navas. Midfielder, Fernando (29) and one season disappointment, Nolito (30) were all gone in summer 2017.
By the following May, City were The Centurions and still the only club to have amassed 100 Premier League points.
All is not yet lost on the pitch with the FA Cup representing City’s best chance of silver ware, but don’t be too quick to write off a Rodri-inspired renaissance at the Club World Championship in the USA.
Perversely, City’s most memorable wins this season will most likely come off the pitch.
Having already gone 1-0 up on the Premier League in the legal wrangle over Associated Party Transactions (APT) rules, City are poised for a 2-0 win after an Independent Tribunal ruled the Premier League’s rules were unlawful.
The same Tribunal will now rule on the Premier League’s ill conceived and hastily imposed amended APT rules after a second legal challenge by City.
The same outcome would pave the way for some blockbusting sponsorships with Etihad Airways and the First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) rumoured to be valued at £2billion.
It could also see Premier League rivals penalised for benefitting from low interest or interest free loans from shareholders.
City have argued that it's anti-competitive for other clubs e.g. Arsenal (£259m), Chelsea (£146m), Liverpool (£71m) to have ''soft unregulated' loans - and that's before the likes of Brighton (£373m), Everton (£451m), Leicester (£132m) and Bournemouth (£115m) are taken into consideration.
The biggest triumph could be coming down the pike next month with the verdict on City’s 115/130 (you choose) alleged breaches of the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.
It’s not blind faith, but when a man of Khaldoon Al Mubarak’s integrity and professional standing say’s City have ‘irrefutable proof of their innocence’ , it pays to take notice.
City’s Chairman is a man of enormous intellect and, amongst his many roles he is the Managing Director and Group CEO of Mubdala Investment Company, an enterprise controlling global assets worth more than $300bn.
City have already shown the Premier League can’t stay within the laws of the land, so when the onus is on Richard Master’s motley crew to prove City’s guilt – not City to prove their innocence – it’s perhaps best to be in Khaldoon’s corner.
Multiple lawsuits for defamation and loss of income could follow any judgement in City's favour, and with it countless millions of pounds to swell the transfer coffers.
Laying the charges to rest would be a win of seismic proportions, albeit there will always – always – be those who will insist on City’s guilt no matter what the evidence.
The Red Cartel and their ilk will do anything to tarnish City’s achievements and taint their legacy.
Pep Guardiola has never been one to reflect on his legacies or rest on his laurels, there’s always too much to do in the here and now and the future. Likewise, there’s no time for football obituaries.
By David Walker
Twitter @ReadButNeverRed
@djwskyblu
Really enjotyed this.
Brill read
Great piece Mr RBNR 💙
Thank you for another fab piece Mr RBNR ..... the future is bright, the future is Blue 💙🙏
Great article as always Dave. We have started a rebuild which will continue in the summer and hopefully bring in some much needed fresh players.
The rest of the Prem teams is loving how the season is going for us but we will have the last laugh with the court cases and a new team next season.
Let's see who's laughing then