This was a Pep Guardiola we haven't seen before.
The Manchester City manager has been intense, emotional and angry at various points across his six-and-a-half year spell at the Etihad, but rarely have all of those combined to the extent that they did on Thursday night.
Guardiola had ticked off his broadcast interviews with a number of eye-catching statements, where he accused his players of lacking guts and the fans of being too quiet in City's 4-2 comeback win over Tottenham. When he spoke to the written media in his post-match press conference, it felt as though weeks worth of frustrations, maybe even months, spilled out all at once.
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While Guardiola covered a lot of ground in his press conference, one point was clear: something wasn't right, and if it didn't change, then City will have no chance of winning the Premier League. "Arsenal will destroy us," he said, if City replicated their performance against Spurs.
"Without change we aren't going to win anything," he began, leading onto a first answer about how City's recent performances have lacked passion. He pointed to Tottenham's surrounding of the referee on multiple occasions, asking 'who defends [Rico Lewis]?' after Spurs targeted City's teenage defender physically.
Worryingly, he suggested that bringing on key players like Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Kyle Walker or Joao Cancelo off the bench at half time, with City 2-0 down, wouldn't have changed anything in regards to that desire.
Then he moved onto the fans, who he had told Sky Sports were too comfortable, and had been quiet for 45 minutes until City found themselves 2-0 down. Guardiola called out his supporters for expecting City to score goals, and becoming complacent after City's incredible decade of success. He also suggested there was an expectation that the Blues would come back from 2-0 down again, when he warned that won't keen happening.
So why does Guardiola think there has been a collective drop across the whole club? In his next answer, he began to defend City's domestic record against their European struggles. "It's bull----," he said to the hypothetical criticism that City's success is dependent on winning the Champions League. He went on to praise Nathan Ake, Rico Lewis and Julian Alvarez for showing the hunger that their teammates might be lacking. Even Erling Haaland wasn't immune to criticism.
Next up, the title race with Arsenal was mentioned, and City's gap both on and off the pitch to the leaders.
"They train really good but there is something which is here," he said, pointing to his head, "in the clouds which you cannot express in a million details, and we don’t have it. I see the Arsenal games and they do everything good - that’s why they’re in front and they deserve it."
Once again, he challenged the fans to demand City score goals rather than expect, and finished his extraordinary press conference with the headline quote: "I want a reaction for all the club, the whole organisation - not just the players, the staff and everyone. We’re a happy flowers team. Happy flowers organisation, ah it’s good. No, I don't want to be a happy flower. I want to beat Arsenal. But if we play in that way Arsenal will destroy us. Arsenal will beat us."
Guardiola was far from a happy flower, and his scattergun approach to criticising everyone and anyone showed it. His players will be in no doubt that they must improve in order to satisfy their manager. If they show even half of Guardiola's passion in the second half of the Premier League season, they will show the 'guts' and 'fire' he has asked for.
But for Guardiola to explode in the manner he did on Thursday suggests his frustrations are far deeper than he has been hinting at - and he has been making reference to City's drop in mentality and hunger in recent weeks. They went unheard, resulting in this new outburst, but now they surely cannot be ignored.
Whatever triggered Guardiola after full-time against Spurs had been simmering for some time. He will hope his incredible press conference will be the trigger for an appropriate response.
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