Manchester City: Pep Guardiola a distraction

Manchester City sit only one point off the top of the Barclays Premier League, but is the constant speculation about Pep Guardiola causing too many distractions?

In terms of sensationalist headlines, I’m not sure it can get an awful lot more alarming for a Citizen than “Man City Crisis”. Yet this is exactly the headline run by the Daily Star this morning. What is the crisis being discussed exactly? City dropping out of contention for the league? No, can’t be that, only one point off the top spot and looking good for it too. Sergio Aguero and/or David Silva injured again? Thankfully not. Season ticket price increase, heaven forbid? No, not even that.

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It seems that the crisis currently rocking the boat is that current Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola may have held talks with Manchester United about becoming their manager at the end of the season, rather than City. That’s right, a manager still under contract with a team had a meeting with a team with a manager still under contract other than City. At least, I think that’s what the crisis is, I couldn’t find any other mention of one in the article.

Here we are at the mid-point of the season and some media outlets simply can’t help themselves, and who can blame them? With little to write about in terms of major moves and only tenuous rumours of players available to City on the market, that leaves really only the elephant in the room of Guardiola and his clear interest in managing a successful English club. Indeed, the discussion about Guardiola has lurched from one level to the next of speculations centred almost entirely around City. From interest, to confirmation, to potentially back again, Guardiola has run the gamut and taken the fans along with him for the ride. Meanwhile Manuel Pellegrini still sits in the manager’s chair and the Sky Blues still sit one point off the top spot.

It’s hard to begrudge the media an opportunity to wildly speculate about what will happen when the season ultimately comes to a conclusion. Guardiola is, undoubtedly, a legendary manager, one of the cream of the crop. His record precedes him. His first four seasons of professional management, all at Barcelona, saw him win some 14 trophies including winning the treble in his inaugural year, the first team in Spanish history to ever win the treble. Lest you think that this was as a result of Barcelona being Barcelona, a dominating force at the top of the game, you have to consider that this wasn’t actually the case at all when Pep took the reins. He whipped his players into shape with strict training regimes and imposed financial penalties on their tardiness. All this served to break Barcelona free of its celebrity culture and turn them into a well-oiled (winning) machine.

Certainly that only tells part of the story, but it’s not debatable whether Guardiola is one of the best in the business, he really is. Barcelona under Frank Rijkaard were a disaster, an overpaid, underperforming mess of a team that couldn’t win a raffle. Guardiola himself changed the dynamic, the ethos and ultimately the fortunes of the club. It’s not a unique story by any means either. The lists are as long as your arm as to his accomplishments, his tactical geniuses, his undeniable thirst for success. Should he truly become available to Premier League clubs, there shouldn’t be a team in the country that shouldn’t crave having him at the helm, Manchester City included. But the heart of the matter is, the time for that simply isn’t now.

Guardiola serves as nothing but a distraction at this point. He’s not going anywhere until the end of the season and neither is Pellegrini, yet you’d think the opposite based on the endless speculation. Should you think that the speculation on Guardiola hasn’t had any spillage onto the park, consider that we already discussed how Yaya Toure is, yet again, centre stage of transfer rumours based on his history with Pep. Now, it’s true, Toure is in the thick of such discussions on a bi-monthly basis, you can set your clocks to it, but I’m fairly sure this is the first time we’ve ever heard talk of his leaving Manchester City based on a possible decision of someone who doesn’t even manage for City yet.

Next: Manchester City to replace Toure with Barkley?

Perhaps Guardiola did have talks with United, though it seems United are quick to deny it ever happened. Regardless, he should still be a non-factor for fans and players alike going forward, particularly with things as tight at the top as they are this year. City have pressing business in a must win game tomorrow at Upton Park against the Hammers. And wouldn’t coming away from that with anything less than three points be a true “Man City Crisis”?