Pep Guardiola has revealed that the old “typical City” mentality is still alive and kicking within the club - but now it has a positive edge to it.
The Blues earned that tag in the 30 years before Sheikh Mansour’s 2008 takeover, when the capacity for everything to go wrong - even at the moment it seemed to be going right - was always to the fore.
City fans who pre-date the takeover are still scarred by that ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, even though Sergio Aguero’s late winner against QPR to win the title seemed to have laid the ghost to rest.
There are still Blues fans who, despite a flood of silverware, and with their team nine points clear at the top of the Premier League and looking strong in the Champions League and FA Cup, fear it will all turn sour in the last three months of the season.
And Guardiola says that the “typical City” mentality has not been eradicated from the club - it has been turned into a motivational tool.
In terms of supporters, Guardiola had only been used to Barcelona and Bayern Munich, two clubs where expectations of winning and taking trophies are high, so encountering City fans with a pessimistic bent might have appeared alien to him.
But he says that it is a healthy mindset and one which permeated his previous clubs as well as City.
“I was born in Barca, grew up in their academy. They taught me everything and the best way is that everything can go wrong, the warnings to have as an individual or as a team you can go down and lose,” he said.
“That’s the best way to approach. We’ve had an incredible run of one draw in 14 games and are in the hat for the (FA Cup) draw - fantastic.
“But Liverpool are still there around the corner, and that’s the mentality. Our team has shown we’re not scared to face every game with positivity, but knowing we can drop points.
“This is the way to behave when you lose a game. Against Brentford, one pass, Kevin De Bruyne went 40 metres back to help out John Stones at right-back. When it happens, you can’t ask more when they’ve won what they won.”
Guardiola added that despite all of their wins and trophies, the secret is to reset after every game and recognise that the capacity for calamity still exists, and explains why the performance in games they lose is important.
“Nobody wins always but we have to win, fight to win the Premier League, have to win an incredible amount of points against these opponents,” he said.
“The margin to Liverpool is nothing. We have to win a lot of games, more than 90 points, 95 or 96 to be champions, I’m pretty sure. It’s the way you lose, many times we lost as a great team, it’s the way you lose.”
