Pep Guardiola Man City 115 charges meltdown just handed Arsenal unique Premier League opportunity
Pep Guardiola, the master of control, might just have let the mask slip. As a man who wants more midfielders and now centre-backs than anyone else, maybe ever, his mantra has always been about care, poise, and precision.
After eight years in England, thousands of press conferences, and over 18 months of being pushed on Manchester City's looming, sky-darkening, asterisks-inducing, conversation-killing 115 charges and the potential impact of it in the Premier League, has it all started to get a bit too much?
Guardiola always wears his heart on his sleeve. He's a nervous watcher, he reacts, he's passionate. He shouts, throws his bottle, turns in angst to the unfortunate City coach sat by his side, and chews their ear off with tactically somethings.
Like Mikel Arteta, he speaks honesty and openly, defends his team, and does it until it tears him apart. But very rarely have we actually seen Guardiola crack.
Maybe the now infamous 'twice' meme, whilst losing away at Anfield in 2019 on his way to giving up the title in England for the first (and so far only, and last) time, was one of the few occasions. That was funny though. This, from Guardiola, was downright disbelief and exhaustion. A loss of control.
"Maybe he's right," the previously ice-cold Barcelona midfielder shrugged as he spoke of comments made by Spanish La Liga president Javier Tebas, claiming that City's rivals want to see the four-in-a-rowers punished for alleged misdeeds. "For the fact that all the Premier League teams want us to be sanctioned, that is for sure. I agree with Tebas for the first time, and hopefully the last. I am pretty sure I agree with that."
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These are words almost said with despair. It's a fight Guardiola looks to have given up. The case will start on Monday, the two-week international break he just had away from the noise of court-rooms, breaches, and punishment claims have ended. From now on, but really just as a continuation of what has passed, the season will be dominated by updates and talk from City vs something they are actually a member of.
It was telling that when asked in pre-season what the biggest questions for the 2024/25 campaign were, a journalist responded first with City's hearing. Not whether they can win the league for a fifth straight time, not if Arsenal could go one better and usurp them, not if Everton would finally go down, or how Arne Slot would do at Anfield, but how Guardiola and City would be dealt with off the pitch instead.
For Arsenal, this demonstrates that is really is their chance. If there ever has been a weakness then maybe it's right in front of them. Guardiola still has just nine months left on his contract at the Etihad Stadium. This case will undoubtedly go on long beyond that with appeals, counter appeals, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It is all one giant distraction.
Here, Guardiola has made no bones about revealing that it actually is having an effect. In a mazy rant of the sort that only Guardiola at his cognitive finest (and perhaps somewhat craziest) can do, he swung for everyone. He had had enough, and it was finally aired.
"That's why I say to Mr Tebas and the Premier League teams: wait for the independent panel," he pleaded, or rambled. "Justice is there in a modern democracy so yeah, wait for the decision, it's not more complicated than that.
"But I don't know if he is a lawyer or the rest of the Premier League teams are lawyers so what I ask for is that – wait, it happened with UEFA. We believe that we have not done anything wrong so we go to an independent panel and we are going to wait."
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Guardiola continued:"There are many lawyers in this country and in Spain but I wait. We’re going to wait and see. We are not lawyers. Erling [Haaland] is not a lawyer so we didn’t talk about it. What is going to happen is with the independent panel and we will accept the sentence.
"I’m happy it starts on Monday and I know there will be more rumours about the sentences that come up and we’re going to see. I know what people are looking for, I know what they are expecting - I know it because I have read it for many years - but I’ve said everyone is innocent until guilt is proven. So we will see."
Guardiola is right, of course. Because with something this giant and unprecedented, with a public battle between league and breakaway champion, there is no true end. Every minuscule matter becomes so much more.
City have proven not to be a team of humans for a while anyway, but they would be truly alien if all of this wasn't to have some impact. It is a crack in the door and an opening that can leave Arsenal there to take advantage.
Should Arteta see his side topple this beast it will be historic regardless of the outcome between lawyers. There doesn't have to be a negative association that City lost points or had titles stripped to get Arsenal there, they would be doing it themselves anyway.
That is an irresistible prospect. So to is maybe the one that Guardiola could also be leaving behind in this speech. Guardiola has flip-flopped about on his stance. If City have lied to him then he would leave immediately, he has said, but if they were dropped into League Two then he has also stood by and announced his plans to go back up the divisions.
Could this all be a touch of Guardiola worrying about the outcome here? City have no choice but to wait, neither does Guardiola, but maybe the mind games are all a bit much.
Is he concerned that after all of this, the big effort, the total fight, the fronting up and taking questions firmly to the chest, that it could all be in vain. Has he been let down? How much of the castle was made on sand?
These are natural fears but not ones we have only seen from Guardiola in the rarest of rare moments. That glimpse against Tottenham last season when Son Heung-Min ran through on goal and threatened to hand the title ascendancy to Arsenal? It killed him. It was too much.
But here we are again. Guardiola is back, he is on the training pitch and looking for new ways to break the game down and go where teams haven't done before. If so much of this effort was to be struck off or left in controversy for the remainder of his coaching career and life, then was it all worth it?
These are the split incidents of existential doubt that can be read into Guardiola in this very press conference. Maybe it's everything, maybe it's nothing. One way or another Arsenal need to seize hold of it and grab at the strains of potential weakness.
If Guardiola is dealing with this weight of unbearable tension and pressure in anything other than a pristine, perfect manner, then there is a chance. If he is exposing concern for what is to follow months of interrogation then Arsenal will find out eventually anyway.
With the ball still in their court to add to Guardiola's strife it needs to be acted upon.