An analysis of Pep Guardiola’s influence, both tactically and mentally, on the Premier League.
Pep Guardiola’s influence had reached England long before the Catalan touched down on its soil. His iconic Barcelona side mesmerized global audiences with its advocacy of intricate passing, possession based football.
And the aesthetics were matched with efficacy. While spinning filigree patterns of passes on the turf of Camp Nou, the diminutive duo of Xavi and Andres Iniesta won everything.
At the same time as they were raising shed loads of silverware (2009/10 to 2011/12), pass completion rate in the Premier League jumped a massive 6%. And it wasn’t just elite clubs attempting to replicate the Catalan’s style of play – everyone was.
In 2010, Ian Holloway’s newly promoted Blackpool side initially took the league by storm.
"“You’ve got to look at tiki-taka, you’ve got to look at Spain, how they pass the ball, how they keep the ball,” said Holloway, as seen in Michael Cox’s The Mixer. “They are little guys who run around passing and are quite brilliant. What’s wrong with us, why can’t we do it? I want my team to be more like Spain.”"
Blackpool defied the odds and sat in seventh at New Years; however, largely due to passing supreme Charlie Adam’s drop in form, the Seasiders couldn’t keep up such momentum.
The best example is probably Brendan Rodger’s Swansea City. The Northern Irishman has always been obsessed with Barca’s philosophy. During his formative years as a coach, he regularly traveled to Barcelona to watch youth team and senior games as he developed his tactical manifesto.
In 2011, the newly promoted Swans recorded the third highest possession stats in the division (56%) and finished 11th – a remarkable achievement for a team with such limited resources.
The cornerstone of Swansea’s success was Leon Britton: a diminutive, simple passer of the ball who would have been overlooked by previous generations. The metronome averaged a 94% pass completion rate and caricatured Brendan Rodgers’ philosophy at the time.
Pep Guardiola – The Ruthless One
So teams have long looked to Pep for tactical inspiration, but it is his demanding and merciless mentality that is now changing the league’s dynamics. However, football’s minnows can’t join in this time – they are the victims.
Pep took City to previously unexplored heights last season while smashing a plethora of Premier League records: most points, most wins, most goals, best goal difference, longest winning streak, et cetera, et cetera.
The ruthless Citizens donned a ‘champions elect’ status by Christmas and pundits across the country promised an inevitable let-up in the breakneck pace – but it never came. Pep’s blood thirsty side just got stronger and stronger in the manager’s perennial quest for utopia.
There had never been a bigger points gap at the top and the rest of the pack learned a valuable lesson: there will be little margin for error as long as the Catalan is in town.
At the end of last month, The Times’ Oliver Kay (via The Star) wrote of how the top six had recorded 34 wins in their first 40 games against the rest. Only three games were drawn and three were lost, and this took into consideration Manchester United’s terrible start to the season.
Tottenham is a prime example of the new breed of flat-track bullies. Apart from an early slip up against Watford, Spurs has been flawless against the division’s fodder and is enjoying its best ever start to a Premier League campaign.
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Of course, Mauricio Pochettino deserves the credit for changing the mentality of the club but I can’t help feel that if the bar hadn’t been raised quite so high by Pep, then they wouldn’t be grinding out victories at such a consistent rate.
Another example is Arsenal. A couple of defeats versus City and Chelsea were followed by seven hard-fought victories against lower ranked teams.
Ahead of the North Londoners in the table are Chelsea and Liverpool – both undefeated and would be top almost any other campaign with such point tallies.
Liverpool has maximum points against teams outside the big six so far, but three draws within the elite ‘mini league’ mean it lies two points behind the leaders.
Ironically, Jurgen Klopp’s men have been more Robin Hoods than flat-track bullies in recent years. However, they did register a draw against City which is better than how Arsenal, Tottenham, and Manchester United fared.
The chasing pack are aware they must keep churning out wins as a City slow down probably won’t come any time soon. The league leaders’ ridiculous goal difference (12 goals superior than the next best) is daunting evidence of that .
A quick glance in the rearview mirror and Pep will see four teams hot in pursuit. But whether any of them will be able to keep up with the cut throat pace setters remains to be seen.