Pep Guardiola’s biggest challenge as a coach may be just about to start. Listen to him speak, and there is a strong sense that the Manchester City manager knows it. Guardiola’s team broke so many records en route to winning the Premier League title in May that it was difficult to keep track. Yet almost as soon as the season ended, he suggested that his team could still play better.

They will probably have to. As several managers can testify, winning the Premier League is rather easier than retaining it. If Guardiola wants a reminder as to how quickly things can go wrong for defending champions, the absence of Antonio Conte in the opposing technical area at Wembley today should suffice.

Following the conclusion of their championship season of 2016-17, Conte survived just 418 days as Chelsea’s head coach. At least he saw out a full calendar year in his post after winning the league; the two managers to win the title before him, Claudio Ranieri and Jose Mourinho, did not even achieve that.

No manager has retained the Premier League title since Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United in 2009. Guardiola may be the only man ever to lead a team to 100 points in an English top-flight season, but retaining the trophy would arguably be every bit as special an achievement.

“I am ready,” he said. “From my point of view, the players don’t have to be worried. I am ready, to fight again.” Judging by the look in his eyes, he means it.

As he prepared for Sunday’s Community Shield match against Chelsea, Guardiola was asked just how hungry he was to follow up a record-breaking season. He responded by smiling and rubbing his stomach, but the humorous gesture was followed by some very serious words suggesting, among other things, that his wife Cristina and their children will share the burden of his grumpiness if City falter this season.

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“The fear of losing the games makes me starving and hungry again,” he said. “I don’t like the feeling of losing games. When you lose a game, you feel guilty, you feel bad. Your private life is not good. Your relationship with the players is not good. So that is why to avoid that. Just that simple fear of losing a game makes you hungry.”

A mere six teams have been champions of England in the Premier League era, but only two managers – Ferguson and Jose Mourinho – have defended a title since 1992. Title celebrations have, more often than not, been followed by hangovers.

There are several theories as to why this is: Complacency, fatigue, tactical stagnation, failures in the transfer market, rising standards across the league resulting from increased television revenue. As former Chelsea captain John Terry noted after Mourinho’s first title in 2005, even the status of champions brings its own weight. “Everyone wanted to beat us,” Terry recalled. “Teams were up for it. They sat back behind the ball.”

Ferguson, who won 13 Premier League titles before retiring in 2013, used to guard against complacency by claiming that a trophy was forgotten as soon as it was secured.

He did not, though, get through on mentality alone; an ability to refresh and reshape squads was just as important, getting rid of high-profile players when necessary, both to avoid the threat of staleness and to prevent opponents from working them out.

The latter issue, arguably, was what did for Chelsea under Conte. They became champions in 2017 after an early season decision by the head coach to switch to a 3-5-2 formation, regularly outwitting opponents.

By last season, though, opponents had learned how to match it. Conte was left to spend much of the campaign grumbling about a perceived lack of support in the transfer market, while waiting for the axe to fall.

In the style of Ferguson, Guardiola is not afraid to jettison big names, as Joe Hart will testify. He also shows an ability to keep his players on their toes.

His players can vouch for that. The forthcoming Amazon documentary All Or Nothing, containing extensive behind-the-scenes footage, shows squad members shaken by the ferocity of Guardiola’s dissatisfaction when they fail to meet his standards.

“I will defend you until the last day of our lives in the press conferences, but here I am going to tell you the truth,” Guardiola begins one rant.

He later adds: “Some of you play better when you’re angry with me, so if you hate me, then hate me, guys. No problem at all.”

Guardiola said he had not seen a preview of the film, which is released on Aug 17, although he tried to play down the significance of his outbursts, although he did give an insight into the psychological techniques he uses to get his players to achieve so highly.

“Sometimes you say some things in the heat of the dressing room,” he said. “Sometimes when you are sitting here cold, you can analyse it in a different way. Some players need to be hugged and for you to be close to them to get their best performance.

“Sometimes when you don’t speak to them, they play better. Every person is completely different. Others play better when they are angry with their manager or decisions or because you shout at them.

“The important thing is that they play better, not their relations with the manager.”

City’s ultimate ambition is to win the Champions League, having suffered disappointing exits against Monaco and Liverpool during Guardiola’s first two seasons at the club. Yet the manager sees Premier League performance as the ultimate test of the team’s standing.

“The Premier League is the main target,” he said. “Well, now the main target is the Community Shield, but the Premier League shows how you are as a team, and if you are in a stable system.

“In the Champions League, it is more unpredictable. One bad moment, some bad decisions, or a bad half-time can break all the work of the whole season.

“Barcelona, for me the best football team in the world, won it first in 1992 and before that lost three finals. So it’s a problem to win it. It’s not an easy competition.

“It’s important to be in it every season. And we are going to try, with all our effort, to win it. But if you ask me what is most important competition, it is the Premier League.”