Has Pep Guardiola Changed the English Premier League Since He Arrived in 2016?

 by Flo Yearsley

(image by: Football.ua, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Regardless of your opinion of how the beautiful game should be played, the influence of Manchester City's boss is irrefutable, in my opinion. For better or worse, the Catalan's possession-based style has impacted English football in more ways than one.  

Guardiola has won four Premier Leagues, four league cups and an FA Cup in six years since taking the reins at City, so he must be doing something right. But it's the way his team plays that gets people talking. 

Before Guardiola arrived in England, some sceptics didn't believe he would dominate the Premier League as he did with the Bundesliga or La Liga. The second-ball English style that has persisted through generations is something that many believed was too ingrained and could not change here in England. 

Even Guardiola himself saw the task of transforming it as one of the biggest challenges of his career. At the beginning of his spell with City, the players struggled to understand this new concept of filling up the spaces by moving the ball through possession. 

In fact, during the first few months of his tenure, things weren't going well for Guardiola at City, and the media wolves were ready to pounce on him. After losing 4-2 to Leicester, he told the waiting salivating journalists he 'didn't coach tackles', which they gleefully reported. 'Maybe he should' were the universal headlines. 

Those 'expert' journalists now say they always believed in Guardiola's methods and knew he'd turn things around; such is the nature of the weathervane media in this country.

The concept of Total Football has been around for decades, one that legendary Dutch manager Rinus Michels introduced back in the seventies with Ajax and the Dutch National Team. However, Michels did have one of the best players of all time, Johan Cruyff, at his disposal to experiment with the idea.

Cruyff went from pupil to teacher, and his most demanding student when he coached Barcelona from 1988-96 was Pep Guardiola, who said playing under him was like going to school every day. Guardiola calls his former coach his teacher and mentor, a man who taught him to always 'want more and more.'

'I would not be here without Johan Cruyff. He was unique.' And most tellingly, 'I knew nothing about football before knowing Cruyff'.

Guardiola's main objective is to play a possession-based, aggressive pressing style that uses the whole width of the pitch. He likes the wingers to stay out on the wing to receive the ball.  

Guardiola's preferred formations for City are 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, and 4-3-3. He likes City to take the initiative, construct the game from the back, and bring a high press when the ball is lost. A heavy position-based game is played from defence through midfield, with frequent and continuous counter-attacks.

Guardiola's primary goal is for the side to get as much possession as possible, and he fully uses the depth of the City team. The defenders and wing-backs are always available to assist the midfielders when developing attacks. He has changed the role of the wing-back by inverting them but also giving them a more prominent role. His defences play a much higher line, so his WBs are faster and can back up the wingers more adequately, which also compliments the midfield. 

One element of Guardiola's football is fusing positional organisation with sudden creative freedom in the final third. He allows his forwards to improvise once they reach the penalty area, believing in the individuality of his players.

Another essential feature of Guardiola's football philosophy is the importance of a sweeper keeper. When he took over, he was ruthless in assessing his new club's long-term number one. Joe Hart had established himself as England's shot-stopper and City's, plus the keeper had won two Premier League titles with the Sky Blues. Guardiola said Hart wasn't good enough with the ball at his feet, and there was no time to educate him. Out he went. It was ruthless but necessary in his grand plan.

The question at the beginning of this article was, 'Has Pep Guardiola changed the English Premier League since he arrived in 2016?' 

I hope I have demonstrated he has revolutionised the Premier League with his pressing game and the constant tweaks he makes. There can be accusations of unlimited transfer funds levelled at Manchester City, with wealthy backers from Abu Dhabi. Plus, other managers, such as Jurgen Klopp's adaptation of the famous gegenpress or heavy metal football that he fined-tuned with his time at Dortmund and has brought so successfully to Liverpool, have also significantly affected the Premier League.