Try to cast off Guardiola’s shadow
How Enzo Maresca follows Pep Guardiola is the searing question he has to answer – from fans, pundits, football scribes and, more vitally, where it matters: on the pitch. In 10 era-defining years Guardiola claimed 20 titles (including three Community Shields). Maresca was at his side for the treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League of 2022-23. This is one calling card for the players he has to convince to follow him. Another is a single season, 2020-21, in charge of City’s elite development squad when they won the Premier League 2 title. Others are leading Leicester into the Premier League in 2024, and winning with Chelsea the 2025 Conference League and that summer’s Club World Cup with a 3-0 defeat of Luis Enrique’s Paris Saint-Germain in the final. Over to you, Enzo.
Enter Anderson, exit Rodri?
Rodri is City’s silk-smooth controller of midfield, but will he be on the staff by the end of the summer market? The 29-year-old is offering mixed messages, using the last international window and the World Cup one to be ambivalent, at best, regarding a desire to remain at least until his contract expires in 2027. “I’m very calm, I know exactly where I stand, and I’ll tell you that perhaps if there hadn’t been a World Cup, things might be different now,” he has said. The Spaniard is trying to regain the form that won him the 2024 Ballon d’Or after a serious knee injury in September 2024, and subsequent related setbacks, so a sale may be opportune for player and club, particularly as the money can offset the cost of his replacement: Nottingham Forest’s Elliot Anderson, who is on the verge of signing for £116m. He is 23 and one of Thomas Tuchel’s vital midfielders in England’s World Cup campaign.
Close the gap to Arsenal
City ended seven points behind the champions when finishing second this season after taking the title challenge into the penultimate game, when their 1-1 draw at Bournemouth handed Arsenal the crown. The margin is considerable, but not unbridgeable, and Maresca’s mission has to be to overhaul it. If not, he must come close, ensuring the side are “still there” (to use Guardiola’s mantra) at the business end, which would ensure job protection. Maresca’s biggest problem is the obvious one: a sticky patch – especially at the start of his tenure – and he may be cast as City’s David Moyes; the patsy who, like Moyes in succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, came up short as the man who followed the man.
Hope for true backing from the hierarchy
The tenet of the City chair, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, that a manager can never be more important than the club, is City’s driving ethos. Except that when Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain were hired by him as the chief executive and sporting director respectively in 2012 he was constructing a Barcelona-like operation in east Manchester primed for Guardiola’s arrival. The pair held similar positions at Barça during (in Begiristain’s case) or just before (for Soriano) Guardiola’s 2008-12 tenure. Begiristain departed last summer – replaced by Hugo Viana – as the evolution from the Guardiola-centric City began and we are about to discover whether al-Mubarak et al can work the doctrine in the post-Guardiola era. For the best chance of this, three factors should work in concert. First, al-Mubarak, Soriano and Viana have to have identified the right man in Maresca. Second, the players have to be convinced. Third, and most importantly, al-Mubarak, his chief executive and sporting director have to back their man if form dips and the naysayers’ brickbats rain in.
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Since Erling Haaland arrived in summer 2022, City have been the team Guardiola built around the phenomenal No 9. A treble, a Super Cup and Club World Cup, a fourth consecutive title and last season’s Carabao Cup and FA Cup double prove this was sagacious. The problem comes when the Norwegian is injured or fails to fire for a period, because this has hampered City. As the 25-year-old has claimed the Golden Boot in three of his four seasons this is extremely rare. However, two seasons ago he managed “only” 22 in the Premier League, third behind Mohamed Salah, and eight more in the Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup. The net result: City’s sole trophyless season since Haaland joined.
