Man City enter their age of uncertainty with legacies on the line | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola’s words can be delivered with exaggeration, sarcasm or, at times, a combination of the two, so his rhetoric can lend itself to different explanations. But as he assessed his worst season in management, he declared: “I’m delighted to have failed.” If it was failure in the context of 12 league titles in his previous 15 seasons in the dugouts, different types of trebles, three Champions Leagues and an assortment of records, those are the standards Guardiola has set.

Go back a year and the assumption was that Manchester City would win a record fifth consecutive English league title. Instead, City limped in third. They came 22nd in the Champions League group stage. They exited the Club World Cup to Al Hilal and lost the FA Cup final to Crystal Palace. They suffered five successive defeats in a run of nine losses in 12. In one of the other three games, they drew with Feyenoord after leading 3-0. Like their campaign, it was far worse than any realistic expectation.

In the midst of it all, Guardiola extended his contract: despite the defeats and the sight of a great side crumbling, despite the knowledge his great ally Txiki Begiristain would step down as director of football and the shadow cast by the hearing into the 115 (or, more accurately, 130) charges the Premier League levelled. It was a remarkable display of loyalty. Or, perhaps, stubbornness.

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Pep Guardiola is still committed to Man City despite a tough season (PA Wire)

Guardiola has confirmed he will take a break when he leaves City – showing that propensity for exaggeration, he said it could last 15 years, suggesting a possible return to management in his seventies – but a man who could have nothing to prove seems to have unfinished business.

Some of it was created by City’s collapse last year. Now Liverpool rank as both favourites and big spenders. City’s era of dominance could be over, or last season may rank as the exception. Guardiola, the great empire builder, has territory to reclaim.

He is the longest-serving manager in the Football League (because much of Simon Weaver’s time at Harrogate occurred in non-league) and there are pertinent comparisons with two of the great constants before him. Sir Alex Ferguson managed to build three great Manchester United teams. Arsene Wenger had two at Arsenal; their successors were good but not great and tended to finish third or fourth.

And now, definitively, this is the third City team Guardiola has built. His second side has broken up. Kevin de Bruyne was not offered a new contract, Kyle Walker was sold to Burnley, Jack Grealish was rendered an outcast. That is two captains and a £100m buy. A third past skipper, Ilkay Gundogan, may not be in the starting 11. The revolutionary of a goalkeeper, Ederson, is in the final year of his contract and faces competition from the returning James Trafford.

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Kevin De Bruyne’s departure confirmed the end of an era for Man City (PA Wire)

City have undergone a £300m refit, with ten signings in 2025. Each of those numbers is significant. It shows the scale of the rebuild, and chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak admitted City were not “aggressive” enough in the market last summer as they underestimated the need to rejuvenate as their squad aged. But their budget had to be split plenty of ways: while Liverpool spent £100m on Florian Wirtz, only one of the City ten – Omar Marmoush – cost more than £50m.

Of the four winter arrivals, only Marmoush may figure in the first-choice XI, and even that isn’t certain. Of the summer six, Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Cherki look to offer both quality and value for money. Yet they may be judged against peak Gundogan and De Bruyne: they could be very fine players and yet still a downgrade.

Another issue is that, despite all the arrivals, there is no clear successor to Walker yet. Yet another is that, while Guardiola has a good group – and too big for his liking – there may be too few automatic choices. He has options, but did not always pick the right ones among some eclectic choices last season. He has six possible centre-backs, at least as many candidates to play in the middle of midfield or on the wings.

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Phil Foden has vowed to recpature the form that saw him named PFA Player of the Year in 2024 (PA Wire)

Two players pick themselves. Erling Haaland was absent for 40 days last season, played for an underachieving side and still got 34 goals. The great unknowable is if, despite all the other problems, a fit Rodri could have camouflaged shortcomings and carried them to the title. Now the Ballon d’Or winner is back. City could do with seeing Phil Foden back, too: the 2024 Footballer of the Year was actually available for much of last season but rarely resembled the Foden of the previous campaign.

Guardiola, Foden, Haaland, Rodri: they could be the building blocks of another title. Or a side in a mixture of decline and transition, this could be another mixed season for a side lacking the chemistry that propelled their predecessors to glory.

Because, for City, after the guarantees of the past, this feels like an age of uncertainty.