In their first season after Pep Guardiola stood down, Barcelona won the Spanish league. In their first season after Pep Guardiola left, Bayern Munich won the German league. And so, in their first season after Pep Guardiola walked away, Manchester City will…?
The precedents may be encouraging but the reality is that, even as they mounted a Premier League title challenge last season, City finished seven points behind Arsenal, after ending up 13 adrift of Liverpool the previous year. Guardiola left City as their greatest ever manager, but with his greatest side being broken up, a process that continued with the summer departures of John Stones and the captain Bernardo Silva.
