I was watching with my mate Peter Dvorak today as Spurs outclassed and outwitted Manchester City, catapulting Spurs to the top of the table and throwing City back down into tenth spot. This is now the worst start to any season that Pep Guardiola has made to a season and things don’t show any signs of letting up, with a tough fixture list on the horizon. It was today in fact that it dawned on Peter and I, that this will be Pep’s last season. There are many reasons why we believe this to be the case, let’s take a look.
Nothing Left To Spend
Pep Guardiola has been backed by these owners time and time again and even though you may think that the money pit is bottomless, which it is, these owners are not idiots. With this in mind you only ned to take a look at the £400+ million which Pep has spent on defenders alone since he took over at the club few of whom have really delivered on a big scale. The owners can not be happy with the way in which he is spending their money and at some point they will say enough is enough.
Back to Back
No matter what happened in 2019, if City fail to win the league this year then that will be back to back failures to win the trophy. The result of this will be that his position will become untenable because this is a club which has to continuously win the league in order to keep its name. If Pep fails to win the league again then he is going to find himself in trouble.
Champions League
The only thing which can save Pep’s job, or at least the only thing that makes sense, is Champions League success. As far as the club are concerned, this is the only thing that they are missing in their trophy cabinet and those owners understand just how prestigious this trophy is. And so if Pep can pick up a Champions League then maybe things will be a bit better for him, yet we doubt it.
Attacking Failures
A sign that Pep is not as shrewd as people think that he is can be seen in his choice of strikers. When he came to the club he knew that he had Sergio Aguero, one of the world’s best but a striker who was certainly aging. Guardiola surprisingly put all of his eggs in the Gabriel Jesus basket, a strange choice it seemed but everyone assumed that he would grow. Even if Jesus had gone on to become the next Aguero, the club still needed a back up striker, give they were fighting on 4 fronts. Pep failed to do that and this is why at the beginning of the season, Guardiola was left without a striker, an unforgivable move for a manager of a club with untold spending power.
We never thought the day would come, but now it seems increasingly likely that Pep could be on his way out.
