How Pep Guardiola Has Supposedly Ruined Premier League Football;
A recent trend on social media saw Premier League fans reminisce over their favourite ‘Barclaysmen’. This term describes under-appreciated individuals embodying what football should be. The trend was started by Premier League fans disillusioned with world football. Many of these fans would suggest that Pep Guardiola is at fault for their disillusionment.
They argue that in modern football, individual brilliance is too often sacrificed in favour of the system. For many, this is due to Pep Guardiola’s influence on the game. Guardiola often uses a ‘system player,’ and these ‘system players’ tend to be slightly robotic, well-regimented players whose priority is maintaining possession and pressing the opposition rather than showcasing their individual flair. As a result, the naysayers suggest that football has become more boring than ever.
In truth, there is some life in these accusations. For example, the season before joining Manchester City, Jack Grealish was a tour de force and contributed sixteen goals and assists to Aston Villa’s cause. He was once a tricky, creative midfielder, but once under Guardiola’s stewardship, his output was limited to just six goals.
Grealish prioritized not losing the ball and finding the easy pass, which gave Guardiola and Man City the best chance of unlocking defences. We have also seen this happen to Phil Foden, a meteoric talent whose main focus is rarely to beat a man or go for screamers.
Thanks to Guardiola, we now operate in a world where the best player in the Premier League and the Ballon d’Or winner is a defensive midfielder. Rodri is undoubtedly a magnificent talent and is evidently essential to Guardiola’s title-winning side.
The mere fact that a ‘system player’ like Rodri won the Ballon d’Or suggests to some that something is seriously wrong with the game.
Even newly promoted managers like Kieran Mckenna and Russell Martin have developed an obsession with possession. They play with high-flying fullbacks, and their teams seem to want to pass the ball into the back of the net.
A newly promoted side attempting to control the ball and progress up the pitch with quick passes would’ve been unheard of in the early 2000s. In truth, the days of route one football, parking the bus and ‘Big Sam’ Allardyce are all but gone.
Guardiola’s gegenpressing, tiki-taka tactics are now implemented or, at the very least, homaged by every top manager in the world. This has undoubtedly led to some unrest amongst football traditionalists. These traditionalists are no doubt thrilled that City have lost five in a row.
However, if you think that this is the end of Guardiola’s City, then you clearly haven’t appreciated what the Spaniard has achieved. At their best, Guardiola’s sides are liquid, lethal, and utterly enthralling to watch. His teams are not rigid; they’re patient problem solvers who have been taught to make split-second decisions in real-time. However, he hasn’t sacrificed the quality of football to do this.
Their 100-point tally remains the greatest total in Premier League history. They also hold the record for the most goals scored in a single season with a monumental 106. Guardiola’s teams cut oppositions apart, play on the front foot and score goals galore. Individual brilliance may not be as crucial to Pep, but winning in style certainly is.
Moreover, the Spaniard is a tactical mastermind considerably more adaptable than people realise. Before City signed Haaland, they had spent years playing with a false nine. People rarely appreciate how big of a tactical adjustment this required. The difficulties were evident through Manchester City’s relatively poor form for the first part of the 2022/23 season. It allowed Arsenal to capitalise and gain an impressive lead at the top two years ago.
Still, the genius that he is, Guardiola invented a new formation halfway through the season to solve their woes. City shifted to a 3-2-4-1, with John Stones playing as a makeshift midfielder. No one would’ve predicted Stones to be one of the players of the season, but the Englishman thrived in the role. It also unlocked players like Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan.
In the end, it seemed inevitable that City would storm all competitions. To seamlessly implement a never-before-seen tactic halfway through the season is impressive enough. However, to win the treble on the back of it is one of the greatest managerial achievements in the history of sport.
Therefore, whilst some may argue that the rise of a ‘system player’ echoes the death of Premier League football, in reality, this is the dawn of a new golden age of Premier League football. This is the dawn of a new era of tactical chess matches between football’s greatest minds.
That being said… who doesn’t miss Morgan Gamst Pedersen scoring worldies every week?
