Guardiola’s first – Five weeks into his Manchester City reign, Pep Guardiola appeared to be coasting after an eighth straight win, a 4-0 demolition of Bournemouth and a Premier League debut goal for Ilkay Gundogan. But the struggle that followed—tactical upheaval, player power pl
Five weeks into his new life at Manchester City. Pep Guardiola looked like a manager who had already cracked the code. City had opened his reign with an eighth consecutive win. They had beaten Bournemouth 4-0 in mid-September. and Ilkay Gundogan—City’s first signing of the new era—scored on his Premier League debut.
The squadsheet felt like a declaration in itself. For the first time in four years, the team did not include Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure, David Silva or Sergio Aguero. It was the kind of shift that makes a club feel inevitable.
A week earlier. City had educated themselves in a different kind of pressure at Old Trafford as they schooled Manchester United. a result that landed like a gut punch for Jose Mourinho and helped fuel the national sense that City’s success was not just coming—it was arriving immediately. At the Etihad Stadium media centre, Guardiola carried himself like someone already ahead of schedule. He wore a shirt, tie and jumper. He was asked about the Quadruple, and whether all four trophies were the aim.
After whispering an expletive in incredulity, eight silent seconds followed before he answered: ‘People believe I am going to win the Champions League because I am a really good coach,’ ‘I don’t think so, guys.’
That moment would read differently later. City did eventually lift the biggest prize in club football in 2023. seven years after Guardiola arrived and four seasons after he had originally planned to leave. but his first season told a harsher story than anyone could have enjoyed from the opening stretch.
What Guardiola tried to burn away started almost as soon as he drew that line in the sand. In late September 2016 he scoffed at the idea of repeating a feat he had achieved at Barcelona in 2009—his message was simple: do not expect miracles. But what he surely did not expect was the season of struggle that followed: a tortuous adjustment to a footballing culture and sporting environment that at times seemed to baffle even his most precise coaching.
Season 2016-17 ended with City finishing third to champions Chelsea and crashing out of Europe in February against a Monaco team featuring Kylian Mbappe. Falcao. Benjamin Mendy and Bernardo Silva. It was also the first season of Guardiola’s career that produced no silverware at all. In the same campaign, he conceded more goals than ever before as a coach. By his own reckoning, it was a record he wanted erased. So bad was it, he even told friends it had become a four-year project—ending in 2020 rather than earlier.
The hardships were not just measured in results. The setbacks spread: a League Cup exit to United and an FA Cup semi-final defeat by Arsenal appeared in the first stretch. Guardiola then committed himself publicly to another season, signing a contract 12 months later.
Before he even got to the pitch, he had been preparing for a fight of a different kind. Having spent weeks memorising names of non-football staff from lists compiled by employees already in situ. Guardiola greeted Stacey on reception by name as he moved quickly through the automatic glass doors. She, at least, would be safe. Not everybody was.
Guardiola spoke in forensic depth with City director of football Txiki Begiristain about what was needed. and Begiristain made it clear the refresh would have to come in phases. Guardiola said he wished to avoid any players on Begiristain’s longlist who remained at clubs where he had previously coached them.
But the overhaul was never meant to be only about personnel. Guardiola felt the flaws in his inheritance were obvious, and the size of the job may still have been underestimated even as he waved away questions about the Quadruple after Bournemouth.
City. after all. had finished fourth when Leicester City completed their historic 2016 fairytale. and the board had been unhappy with an ‘unacceptable’ league campaign. Mid-March fears even suggested Manuel Pellegrini might not reach the minimum requirement of Champions League qualification. He did on the final day, but only on goal difference, squeezed in ahead of Louis van Gaal’s United.
That background didn’t stop the glamour of Guardiola’s unveiling in July 2016. He was greeted at the event with a hamper that arrived in his office with PG Tips. a Coronation Street box set and some Oasis vinyl. He was coerced into singing ‘Blue Moon’ on stage. and when confetti was fired from a cannon at the climax. he almost jumped out of his skin.
The most serious moment came when he uttered ‘kick their ass’ while explaining how he would approach his new players—many of whom had phoned in their work ever since Pellegrini’s departure and Guardiola’s appointment, announced at a bizarre press conference five months earlier.
Guardiola felt he was looking at an overweight group. He told them so, ordering Samir Nasri, Toure and Kevin De Bruyne to sort their body fat out during pre-season. Nasri never recovered from the message and was loaned out to Sevilla. De Bruyne, by contrast, became the club’s greatest ever player.
The hard line continued. Players who did not hit target weights under Guardiola were banished from training—punishment and also. Guardiola’s argument was. a way to avoid injury risks. The body fat of City’s players was measured on scales every single morning without exception. and usually nutritionist Tom Parry collates the data and has to be in Guardiola’s office for a predetermined time. catching out tardiness too. The results worked on a traffic light system and only a handful of players failed it across the following decade. with Kalvin Phillips in 2022 a rare example of a later high-profile case.
But in 2016, the shift in styles was jarring. Guardiola could not understand why some of his group—given City’s pursuit had been the worst-kept secret in football and the change had been apparent for almost a year—still had not looked after themselves.
Then came the tour of China, meant to showcase Guardiola and City’s new global appeal. The schedule included a United game in Beijing and a Borussia Dortmund meeting in Shenzhen. The chance to capitalise on their new-found status should have been simple.
The execution wasn’t. Heavy rain meant the United match was postponed, but long before the weather, the pitch at the ‘Bird’s Nest’—the Olympic Stadium venue—was already in disarray, affected by fungus. Guardiola was apoplectic: ‘Unacceptable,’ he said. ‘We didn’t come for a holiday.’
While his attention was still switching between continents, Guardiola formed opinions about his senior group. In Beijing. he watched Joe Hart fail time and again to chip balls over to goalkeeping coach Xabi Mancisidor in what appeared a simple drill. Work was already behind the scenes to land Claudio Bravo from Barca.
Hart then tried to fight for his place. In a conversation with Guardiola. the England goalkeeper pleaded to stay and said his footwork would improve and that he would learn new ways. Guardiola. as the discussion went on. became exasperated. saying: ‘Joe. Joe. you don’t understand.’ The outcome was unambiguous: he would not be playing for City under the new manager. Hart was only 29, but that talk effectively ended his career at the very top level.
Hart later admitted to wanting to ‘rip Pep’s head off’, but he said he has since made peace with the decision and even interviewed Guardiola for a broadcaster in 2025.
The goalkeeping logic that followed suggested Guardiola’s decision-making was not only about passing. City were hot on Gianluigi Donnarumma a year later. but Bravo’s early problems in goal—described as a failure of the Chilean’s own basics—came to define the honeymoon period. The knives were out after he dropped a cross on debut at United. A sending off for handball at Barca in the Champions League followed. He then conceded from six consecutive shots during two games in January, including the nadir—a 4-0 defeat at Everton. He only saved 57 per cent of attempts in that season.
Within a year of Guardiola’s appointment, City were also shifting their senior spine through other conflicts. Yaya Toure—once central to City’s journey to relevance under Abu Dhabi—had seen the end coming. War broke out when City’s Champions League squad dropped in early September: Toure was left out. and the club legend Guardiola felt was not heeding off-the-ball instructions in training wasn’t named in their first three league squads.
Toure’s agent, Dimitri Seluk, made sure the dispute travelled. During an international break, Seluk hit trusted media contacts and headlines carried the word ‘Humiliated’. Guardiola struck back, insisting Toure would not be considered for selection until he received an apology.
A peace was brokered. Toure scored both goals of a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace on his comeback in mid-November. He was probably City’s best player for the rest of the season. then going on a charm offensive that extended to embraces after matches. He signed a new contract, but the relationship never settled. Frozen out again in 2017-18, Toure later made inflammatory accusations about Guardiola’s alleged attitude towards Africans. He wrote to City hierarchy some time later hoping the message would be passed on to Guardiola. His apology went without acknowledgement.
All of it landed while Vincent Kompany’s health was becoming a story on its own. Toure licked his wounds at home while injury clouds circled over Kompany. During a five-day residency at five-star Celtic Manor—the venue for the 2010 Ryder Cup—Guardiola bonded with staff. pressing for personal stories. including after the team had watched how the ‘chef wasn’t taking corners’ at Swansea but must have felt just as important.
Kompany’s first appearance under Guardiola came in the Wednesday night cup game. He finished it but suffered a groin problem in the final moments. City took the comeback slowly because the club captain had been mismanaged the season before. Another issue straight away was a crushing blow.
Kompany also had reservations about Guardiola’s planned three-at-the-back system, telling the manager it might not suit him. On the eve of the September Manchester derby, those frustrations boiled over. Kompany came to blows with fellow defender Aleksandar Kolarov during a session.
With Hart and Nasri out of the squad, Toure exiled, and Gael Clichy, Pablo Zabaleta and Bacary Sagna increasingly surplus to requirements by November, Kompany’s worries looked justified.
He would ultimately spend three years with Guardiola, lifting two more league titles. He left in 2019 for Anderlecht, first as a player and then as player-manager. When fit, he became a colossus, remembered for a title-defining long-range strike to beat Leicester City weeks before his exit.
But in 2016 and 2017, Guardiola’s methods didn’t only hit the big names. Some teammates simply bristled at the way the new regime landed. In the first autumn stretch. one senior player held court with reporters at a Manchester hotel to privately denigrate Guardiola’s personality and methods. That senior player said Guardiola had not warmed to key components of his staff and complained they wouldn’t speak English.
Nolito, the Spanish forward signed for £14m in summer 2016, said team talks weren’t being translated into Spanish. He later moaned about Manchester’s climate as well. describing how his daughter’s face had changed colour and looked like she had been living in a cave. Nolito criticised cliques within the squad and said there was no unity. He left a year later with four league goals.
Guardiola, though, kept building his internal world, a habit that could look eccentric from the outside. He would walk across the club compound to perch on desks of random employees in the administration building near his office. asking what they did and who they were. First-team staff described it as if Guardiola was simply going to work to see his mates. He would ask questions about their family.
Those nights out became part of the method too. Bonding nights at Tapeo & Wine on Deansgate—owned by the father of United playmaker Juan Mata—were central. Nutritionist Silvia Tremoleda checked restaurant suitability for a Christmas meal. but the small corner of one of the city’s longest roads was mostly where staff used evenings out. There was karaoke. Parry was known for renditions of Michael Jackson hits. Guardiola encouraged dancing and staff joked they couldn’t keep up with his pace.
Begiristain, Domenec Torrent and first-team coach Mikel Arteta were also part of the mix. Arteta, later manager of Arsenal, had been hired for his understanding of the Premier League—opponents, managers and even specific stadia—and he threw himself into the camaraderie Guardiola was cultivating.
The living setup reflected it too. Guardiola’s No 1 Deansgate apartment became a base. and he always walked home in the dead of night to the building. despite warnings to take a taxi. It’s also described as part of the broader preparation: City Suites—where he took a gigantic space on the 14th floor—opened in February 2017.
Then came the little details that made supporters think Guardiola was a perfectionist—and helped convince him he was right even when it hurt.
The Wi-Fi ban in training dressing rooms lasted three days, and not because players rebelled. The medical department could not send important files from a nearby office. Players were told to leave their phones outside instead. Guardiola made breakfast and lunch a team affair. sometimes evening meals too. all free of sugar and gluten. with white fish featuring prominently and mixed bags of nuts handed out after matches. After a friendly against Arsenal in Sweden ended 3-2 in defeat. Guardiola admonished the airline for the presentation of in-flight meals.
City’s training structures were reshaped as well. The City Football Academy—designed so first-team players and academy stars lived under the same roof—was changed by Guardiola. The Elite Development squad moved out because staff felt they needed more space. and the new building became invite-only and off-limits to anyone outside.
Guardiola scrapped overnight stays that had been commonplace under Pellegrini before games. He wanted players to spend as much time with families as possible and denied that he had imposed a ‘no sex after midnight’ rule.
He even battled for the physical shape of training: ground staff were told to paint lines to define the ‘half space’ between the centre circle and penalty box. the area Guardiola wanted to focus on for attacking improvement during relentless sessions. All grass was supposed to be cut at 19mm like Catalonia and Bavaria. The climate would not allow it, so the training pitch was negotiated up to 23mm.
There was one battle he did win without much fight: the netting of Etihad goals. Fashionable black netting irked him because he argued it hindered forwards. After a 1-1 draw against Middlesbrough in his sixth home game. only yielding one point from 18 shots and 71 per cent possession. and with the third consecutive 1-1 home draw immediately following the Bournemouth win. the conversation about the trophies already looked like a short-lived dream.
Ground staff insisted black netting made the frame more prominent, but Guardiola wasn’t having it. The nets were changed to white. It worked, though not in the way he intended. Chelsea went to the Etihad and won 3-1 in the next Premier League fixture.
By then, the season’s pattern wasn’t just Guardiola’s obsession with details. It was defensive disarray. Fernandinho and Aguero both saw red in stoppage time in that game after an unsavoury lunge at David Luiz. Aguero had scored 10 Premier League goals by early December. but he also knew that in a month’s time teenage Brazilian Gabriel Jesus would land from Palmeiras. Aguero then missed three matches for violent conduct.
Meanwhile, Guardiola’s sensitivity about blame showed itself in press moments too. In one press conference, he leapt to shield John Stones from public blame by claiming the centre half had ‘more b***s’ than anyone sat in the room.
And Aguero—the charismatic, dashing last-minute hero of the 2012 title win—was becoming part of the bruise. Manchester buzzed with conjecture about his relationship with Guardiola.
Inside the dressing room. staff say a professional stand-off was not easy for anyone. though the idea of a full falling out was disputed. Aguero couldn’t understand why he needed to defend with vigour from the front. something he had not been asked to do before. Guardiola, understandably, was unbending.
Aguero often sought out journalists after matches to hint he would rather his situation change. and he was almost sold to Chelsea later that year. He decided to stay after being persuaded by chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, and that decision turned out to be important. Later crowned the club’s greatest-ever goalscorer, Aguero flourished once more after he and Guardiola came to understand each other. The process is described as beginning during a meal between the two at the Italian eatery Salvi’s near the window. where the boss laid out what was expected of his No 10.
Aguero then plundered 95 goals in his first three seasons under Guardiola. He eventually defended in much the same way as Jesus, who never became the natural successor many had hoped.
The early winter Chelsea defeat arrived with red card controversy: City had entered a run of only four victories in 15 games across all competitions, and it introduced Guardiola to the rigours of an English season that did not care about reputation.
It began after City’s first 10 wins of the season ended with a scarcely believable 3-3 Champions League draw with Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic at Celtic Park on a night when City were almost swallowed whole by the Parkhead crowd. A staff member later recalled the mood as if City had lost 3-0. ‘Dead,’ the staffer said now. ‘Wow, this is a change.’.
David Silva. who spent 10 years at City and four under Guardiola. said the response to poor runs was always meetings: when City lost or things weren’t going the way they should. they wanted to understand what was happening. Silva described it as a sign people cared and wanted to win. and that discussing even small problems prevented one thing leading to another.
But Guardiola’s reactions could be extreme too. He confessed to biographer Marti Perarnau that he was a ‘nervous wreck’ before a 1-1 November draw with Borussia Monchengladbach. with build-up described as ‘torture’. In October. before facing Barcelona at home after losing by four at the Nou Camp two weeks earlier. he admitted to fearing the sack. During the November international break, Guardiola even cancelled a trip to Munich for Oktoberfest.
This period defined the season. Guardiola later declared the league campaign effectively over at Goodison Park in January after a 4-0 defeat in which Stones looked like a shell of himself on a first return to Everton.
Three days later, the squad and staff were invited to Manchester’s gaudy Printworks complex to watch La La Land in celebration of Guardiola’s 46th birthday, while Guardiola kept leaning into nights out and bonding exercises.
City’s title dreams took more hits: a 2-2 home draw with Spurs followed, with City winning only nine of the 23 games after Celtic’s ending of the 10-game winning sequence in late September.
The noise became public. After a 4-2 defeat at Leicester City—described as one of the worst displays of his reign—Daily Mirror columnist Stan Collymore accused Guardiola of being ‘deluded’ for not changing his principles. Guardiola’s retort after a defeat included: ‘I’m not a coach for the tackles.’ Two late consolations lent credibility to his tone. but many believed those comments were meant to pit him against the sanctity of English football.
The fallout stretched beyond football. Even in commentary from 2020, Richard Keys and Andy Gray offered an opinion on Qatar TV that Guardiola should bring in Sam Allardyce as a defensive coach. The report here states that call was never made.
There were real football worries beneath the argument too. The season’s bruises touched big summer signings: Stones and German winger Leroy Sane. Gundogan suffered an ACL and missed almost the entire campaign.
But even life outside training became part of Guardiola’s learning curve. He became agitated after City’s bus was caught in London traffic en route to Euston. After a win at Palace, Guardiola wanted to know why the Virgin train had not waited for their distinguished guests. It’s described as plausible he hadn’t known City were booked on a public service. and the ramifications are said to be felt to this day.
Guardiola believed long coach journeys stiffen players’ muscles, so City tend to switch between trains when they can rely on them and flights.
Then came referees—an area Guardiola struggled to stop thinking about. ‘I still don’t understand referees in this country,’ he said memorably after beating Burnley 2-1 before Christmas. Away from cameras, the approach was sometimes more pointed. Guardiola and his players crowding around a Sky Sports monitor during half-time of a 3-1 defeat at Liverpool in 2019 is described as a flabbergasted reaction to the decision to allow Fabinho’s opener. despite a Trent Alexander-Arnold handball in his own area earlier in the move.
He had long taken umbrage with officiating at Anfield, dating back to the Champions League quarter-final in 2018. The profile describes him sometimes heading to the referee’s room to argue calls.
By the time his final year arrived. he was paying attention to Ref Watch on Sky Sports News. the Monday morning segment with ex-referee Dermot Gallagher. to sense the league’s contentious calls. It’s also detailed that he kept notes: Dermot Gallagher backing referee Sam Barrott’s decision not to award a penalty for Fabian Schar’s lunge on Phil Foden away at Newcastle in November 2025. then holding a different opinion on a similar incident the week later. was jotted down. He noticed Jamie O’Hara flip-flopping on an opinion around a possible Dominic Solanke foul on Marc Guehi as Spurs scored during a draw three months later. Guardiola didn’t reference O’Hara by name and instead labelled him ‘the guy’.
Even the viewing setup in training became controversial. Sky Sports News on large televisions across City’s training base is described as a point where some staff privately questioned the wisdom. The canteen became the place where they gesticulated at the TVs. then the anger carried over to coffee and conversation—until it became deep-seated.
The frustration with decisions in January and into February of his 10th year led to a rare move: referees’ chief Howard Webb heading into the City Football Academy for hours to discuss recent decisions that had gone against them. Webb was seen deep in conversation with a club analyst following the 2026 FA Cup final. The piece notes that normally the two parties keep their distance. and Guardiola is described as the only manager in the entire league not to turn up to PGMO meetings. doing it his own way.
By the end of Guardiola’s debut season, the results were not what the early euphoria promised. The campaign still ended trophyless for the first time in his career. but the scale of the task ahead became clearer. Even though there had been a Premier League uptick on Pellegrini’s final season—12 more points and four fewer defeats—City were still 15 points off the pace set by Antonio Conte’s Chelsea. who beat them twice. The cups had also been disappointing.
Some commentary around the period was laced with relish, and Guardiola’s allies accused English media of wanting the new City manager to fail. The reporting here argues that wasn’t true—yet it still felt spellbinding to watch his struggles, because deep down, nobody really expected them to last.
They didn’t. Guardiola’s City won next season’s title at a canter, racking up 100 Premier League points in one of the most astonishing displays of dominance in English football.
But the first season remains the blueprint of how the war began: the weigh-ins, the exiles, the battles over grass and netting, and the growing sense that everything—football, culture, travel, referees—would be fought, reset, and relitigated until the right version of City finally took shape.
Pep Guardiola Manchester City Bournemouth Ilkay Gundogan Joe Hart Vincent Kompany Yaya Toure Claudio Bravo Ederson Premier League Monaco FA Cup League Cup referees Howard Webb Etihad netting