Key ways Pep Guardiola challenged Manchester City and surpassed excellence

Pep Guardiola was adamant about his demands during pre-season. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

How are Manchester City improving? Frivolous answer: not to lose in the League Cup quarter-final to a team that was destined to finish last in the Premier League.

If not for that strange January evening at Southampton, when Nathan Jones beat Pep Guardiola, City would probably have won an unprecedented four, and not just become the second English club after Manchester United to win the championship. League and FA Cup.

This achievement was outstanding, but such is the drive and desire of Pep Guardiola to set records that he does not consider last season to be flawless. Quite the contrary.

The campaign also breaks new ground with Athens hosting the UEFA Super Cup against Sevilla on 16 August, another trophy that City have never won before. Then, after that, the club world championship in Saudi Arabia, and this will be their first participation in this tournament.

Make no mistake, Guardiola wants more than just winning. He wants to win it all and he wants to win it better. He wants to make history on all fronts, which was one of his motivations for moving to City in the first place.

After all, he is also the manager who fielded a strong squad in the Champions League final group game. , although City have already reached the playoffs. Why? Because he wanted to be the first coach in the competition to win all six matches in the group. Ironically, they lost the device.

But this is an example of his ambition, focus and hatred of complacency. Guardiola is well aware that winning the league three times in a row in England was nothing new. City achieved this by retaining the title last season, but four other teams did it before them.

But — and this is important — no team has won the English title four times in a row. Guardiola knows this and it will be one of City's key targets this season as he tries to take himself and his team to new heights.

It starts on Sunday against Arsenal in the Community Shield at Wembley. Last season they were surprise contenders for City's title and, in fact, the game is actually more important for Mikel Arteta than for Guardiola.

Arsenal pushed City, but there was one area where the difference was huge: the games between the two clubs were, frankly, epic inconsistencies. The 7-2 aggregate score (a 3-1 win at the Emirates and a 4-1 win at the Etihad) hardly reflects City's sheer dominance when they faced Arsenal.

Arsenal failed to get close to Manchester City in both league meetings last season. Photo: PA/Martin Rickett. marker psychologically, even if you need a caveat. City have won the title in five of their last six campaigns, but have lost the last two times they played in the Community Shield.

They lost 3-1 to Liverpool last season and the post-match talk was more about Darwin Nunes than Erling Haaland — and we all saw it work then — while a year earlier they were defeated by » Leicester City 1-0. now back in the league.

Arsenal won the Community Shield in 2020 beating Liverpool on penalties after a 1-1 draw, but then finished a highly disappointing eighth in the league. So the reality is that the game is not really a barometer, as much as we would like to present it.

Guardiola has already calculated that his players are about two weeks behind Arsenal in terms of preparation, because they returned later to prepare for the season — he usually gives his team more time — and because they are so deeply immersed in the last campaign.

It's ironic that there has even been some debate about whether City are really weaker this season, ignoring the fact that they made two great additions to the Croatian midfield pairing of Mateo Kovacic and defender Josko Guardiola and hardly on that finished.

Despite this, the loss of experience of Ilkay Gündogan and Riyad Mahrez cannot be overlooked, and if Kyle Walker does manage to leave and join Bayern Munich, and if Bernardo Silva does the same and moves to Paris-Germain – although PSG practically refused from that, that could be an argument.

Guardiola also tends to work with smaller squads. Last season he used the fewest number of players (24) in the Premier League and if there were a couple of key injuries it could be a problem.

For now, it's all ifs and buts. What is undeniable is the manager's intensity, which shows no signs of declining. Like Sir Alex Ferguson who warned his Manchester United players that «this bus never stops», Guardiola is on a mission.

This was evident during their pre-season tour to South Korea and Japan when he shrugged. from the heat waves and, according to Nathan Ake, who had just signed his new long-term contract, «beaten» the players.

«Last season, after you struggled with everything, it might take some time, to get back to that (intensity),» Ake said. “But from day one, the manager got into it and made sure we were doing the same.” This is what makes Guardiola a tireless winning coach. He really strives for excellence, which means that you need to improve compared to last season, as well as win new and different competitions.