Guardiola’s Start at City

This is a guest post from Vikki Steel.

We are now three months into Pep Guardiola’s first season in Manchester in charge of City, and has a time it has been so far. Gone is the plodding football and disconnected atmosphere that characterised Manuel Pellegrini’s final year at the club, and in its place there is a exciting vibe that stems from a series of thrilling displays and the prospect of more to come. If you were to gamble on City winning the Premier League this season, you could get some excellent free bets here.

Guardiola was always expected to have a great influence on proceedings, but few would have imagined his impact being so large and coming so soon. It has taken him barely any time to assess his squad’s situation, dispose of those players he felt unable to cope with his plans and then implement a style of play that has been joyous to watch.

Players who were struggling last season have turned the corner, individuals who were previously confined to one position have been given a lease of life with increased versatility and tactical awareness. It is not just the fact that City have won game and game and game that has been so impressive, but the manner in which they have played.

Raheem Sterling is the perfect example. He struggled in his first year at City, providing occasional glimpses of his quality, but more often than not flitting around on the periphery of a match. And yet under the new manager, he looks a player transformed. He is full of confidence, attacking defenders and committing them in the way he did when first bursting on to the stage at Liverpool. He has been one of City’s players of the season so far.

Fernandinho is another to have stepped it up a notch, despite already operating at a high, underappreciated level. For the last couple of years, he has been terrific in midfield, but he has improved again this year, showing the positional intelligence that Guardiola clearly craves. Comfortable in dropping deep to receive possession from Claudio Bravo, he is adept at turning defence into attack and pushing his colleagues forward.

Those two, Sterling and Fernandinho, are likely to be hard-pressed for the club’s player of the year award by Kevin de Bruyne and John Stones, two young and supremely talented stars who have shone so far under the stewardship of the former Barcelona boss. Stones looks as if he were born to play for Guardiola, and it is easy to see what the manager sees in the defender, with his composure of the ball catching the eye on a weekly basis.

There will be setbacks for this team to overcome, and the defeat to Tottenham is the first of those, but with confidence still high around the club and with Guardiola pulling the strings to great effect, few doubt that City will quickly recover from this minor bump in the road.