Before we try to determine what awaits Manchester City in a post-Pep Guardiola world it is equally as pertinent to insist on who they won’t become.
After moulding Manchester United in his own image, Sir Alex Ferguson retired a decade ago, taking with him an aura that was feared and respected across English football.
Under his charge, the Reds became the dominant force in the Premier League, winning titles by the bucketful and subsequently his departure hit the club hard, sending it into a tailspin from which they are yet to recover.
An identity-crisis soon enough took hold, one that remains to this day and one that turned a formerly cocksure playground bully into an entity riddled with insecurities.
All of which means that ten years on, they are still to add to their title haul and indeed these days United feature most prominently in the Premier League top four odds.
It is a diminishing of their standing that directly came about via the departure of an individual and perhaps ultimately what has transpired is best viewed through the lens of a rival supporter.
When United ruled the roost, fans of Liverpool and the like watched on enviously, desperately hoping that when the day finally arrived, and Ferguson left, United would be detrimentally impacted. They couldn’t have possibly wished however for the downfall to be so seismic and far-reaching.
Whereas nothing of the sort awaits City, even if it can be reasoned that Guardiola’s influence on his current employer is no less substantial that Ferguson’s was at Old Trafford.
Since arriving on our shores in 2016, the Catalan has implemented a blueprint for success that has seen the Blues play a brand of football that has been widely imitated but never bettered, a possession-based ideal forged on principles inherited from the great Johan Cruyff that has led to a stranglehold on domestic competition.
Under Guardiola, City have hoovered up five league titles in six years, averaging 91.1 points per season along the way.
Of course then, when he moves on he will leave an enormous vacuum, plainly because so many of the club’s recent fantastical feats derive wholly from him. From his impossibly high standards. From his obsessive attention to detail.
Approaching this from an altogether more straightforward angle, there is also the not-so-small matter of Pep Guardiola being one of the finest tactical minds of his, or any other, generation. Any club would miss a manager of such stature regardless of the shape they’re in.
Here though is where we reach a fundamental difference, one that is unlikely to see the blue half of Manchester endure the same fate of their neighbours.
And it’s a difference that rests with the clubs, not the respective coaches.
Because when Ferguson took on the United job in 1986, he found an institution in disarray, one that was forever trying to replicate their esteemed status built in the Sixties and forever failing. Through sheer force of personality, the Scot changed the mentality at Old Trafford and in due course came to embody the club.
As previously stated, he moulded the Red Devils in his own image, one that he took with him when he left.
Guardiola however arrived at a club in fine fettle, a club that already had a distinct personality of its own.
With infrastructure put in place post-takeover that established a clear hierarchy among the hierarchy, City began to empire-build early, setting up the City Football group, an organisation that bought up stakes in many other clubs from around the world.
At home meanwhile, in East Manchester, heavy investment in youth development resulted in the construction of their academy, an unrivalled ‘campus’ designed to produce the stars of tomorrow.
Crucially, from the age of five to adulthood, each player is encouraged to play the same way so there is uniformity throughout regardless of who is in charge of the first team.
City’s substantial resources is another consideration, though perhaps less so, given that the same could be said of United who have proven beyond all doubt that money doesn’t automatically buy trophies.
A more persuasive argument focuses on City pre-Pep who were already a very successful enterprise, winning two league titles under two different managers.
Does this mean that his departure won’t be sorely felt at the Etihad? To suggest such a thing would be silly but – as sacrilegious as this feels to commit to print – it can be fairly noted that Guardiola is a key cog in an already formidable machine. Whereas Ferguson was the machine, every nut and bolt.
Presently, the prospect of City losing their Catalan grandmaster feels remote, with a contract due to end in the summer of 2025 but with loudening talk of a 12-month extension.
When the time comes though, assuming the club get the right man to succeed him – and Brighton’s Roberto De Zerbi is currently squarely in the frame – what’s the betting that Manchester City continue to compete at the top, if just a little less so?
For several seasons now Liverpool fans and the like have looked forward to a time when Pep Guardiola is no longer towering over the domestic game. They are hoping for a seismic and damaging reversal of fortunes. A collapse.
Instead, what is most feasible is that Manchester City revert back to merely being extremely good.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
