He isn’t putting a fine point on it. ‘Don’t ask me the reasons I’m leaving. There is no reason, but deep inside, I know it’s my time,’ is how he put it. In doing so, he has made good on what is the most significant departure in English football for 10 years.
What this means for City at the moment
There is still one last time for the team to put an arm around their manager. You can count on some emotion when he takes charge for the home game with Aston Villa on Sunday, capping off a year that had its share of silverware even if the top prize in the league was not among them.
They have the League and FA cups to show for it. But then you had the 1-1 with Bournemouth on Tuesday, which put a stop to any talk of a seventh title and handed the crown to Arsenal. So there will be bittersweet feelings come Sunday.
A decade of making the league do as he pleased
You can put a number on it, but the mark of his time in Manchester is hard to quantify. Ever since 2016, his teams have made possession mean something, put in a press you can’t ignore and required a level of exactness that was a lot to handle. If you were a rival, you had to change or get left in the dust.
Then there are the stats: six top-flight titles and the 2023 Champions League, the first for the club. He also oversaw four in a row at one point, a kind of consistency we don’t see much of in the modern Premier League.
Some numbers that set a new bar
The way the club has been remade is evident in the milestones. The 2017-18 season, for instance, was a case of rewriting the rule book and showing everyone in England what total control can be like.
These are the kind of figures that stand out from his side:
– 100 points in the 2017-18 Premier League, a record.
– 106 goals in the league that same year.
– 32 wins, 50 away points, both the most.
– A +79 goal difference and a 19-point margin for victory.
Depending on how you keep score, you might say 17 major honours, or 20 if you count in a different way. For the fans, though, it’s about the shift in culture that has been with them all along.
In his own words
He didn’t make it about any particular incident. It was more a matter of when and where. ‘Nothing is eternal, if it was, I would be here. Eternal will be the feeling, the people, the memories, the love I have for my Manchester City.’
And with a bit of pride: ‘We worked. We suffered. We fought. And we did things our own way. Our way.’ For someone who has dictated the pace of the league for so long, it’s a fitting way to put it.
What the trophies have come to represent
It is more than just the hardware. His teams made City think they could do more. The 2022-23 treble is a case in point. Or the year they put together the Premier League, FA and League cups plus the Community Shield – a first for any English side to clear the board like that.
Once the whistle has blown
He is not walking away from the City Football Group entirely. The club has him down as a Global Ambassador. That means he will be around to offer a technical eye and work on a few projects here and there.
It is a natural fit for a manager whose approach has been well received. He came in from Manuel Pellegrini in 2016 with a plan and some ambition. Moving to an advisory post is less of a side step and more of a next step.
Who will be on the Etihad sideline?
Now it is a question of who comes in and holds the fort. All signs are that it will be Enzo Maresca, the ex-Chelsea boss and former member of Pep’s staff. It is no small order to carry on without being defined by what has gone before.
How it ends
Under Guardiola, winning was only part of it; it was about a standard you had to live up to. On Sunday against Villa, we will see the last of that for now, a final 90 minutes to put a bow on 10 years of change.
There will be a transition, of course, but not a break. City need to find a man who can handle what is expected of him as well as the other teams. As for Guardiola, he is going on his own terms, sure the timing is right and that what he has put in place will last.
