Manchester City spent more than 150 million pounds on signing five new players during the current summer transfer period, but Josep Guardiola's biggest deal cost him nothing, and you will not play any matches either!
In early June (June), he became Liverpool's second most important coach during the era of Jurgen Klopp, Guardiola's right-hand man at Manchester City.
In fact, this news should have received much more media attention, especially since the appointment of Pep Linders - the man who handled most of Klopp's daily training duties, In addition to his major role in the tactical development of the German coach after his departure from Borussia Dortmund - he indicates that Guardiola - according to Alex Kipley on the «BBC» website - is considering making a radical tactical change.
But what's even more striking is that these tactical changes will be largely shared by Linders, who has worked with Klopp on issues such as counter-pressure and attacking in vertical lines, concepts that were primarily focused on how to negate Guardiola's playing style, which relies on the precise positioning of players inside the green rectangle.There are often exaggerations in showing this great contradiction, knowing that Guardiola and Klopp borrowed a number of tactical and tactical matters from each other, and it seems that the peak of their coaching careers with Liverpool and Manchester City has almost merged into an ideal combination that combines Klopp's dynamism with Guardiola's control.
However, Linders, as with Klopp, is more interested than Guardiola in strong attacking football that relies on high and constant pressure on the opponent, and how to exploit opportunities very quickly once the ball is acquired from the opponent.Looking at things from the outside, Linders' appointment seems to confirm Guardiola's belief that modern Premier League football is moving in the direction of the football Klopp played for Liverpool.Previously, Guardiola's style of controlling the ball in tight spaces hindered the progress of weak teams, but as the performance of mid-level teams improved, clubs that were bold enough to be able to press hard and disrupt the construction of the attack began to achieve positive results against Manchester City
. Most of these teams have begun to play football similar to what Manchester City offers in terms of building attacks from back to front and possessing the ball as much as possible, and even Guardiola himself began to suffer due to his team's slowness and the players' positioning in fixed places, in a way that made his team lose the element of surprise.Guardiola told «TNT Sports» a few months ago: «Modern football today is that played by Bournemouth, Newcastle, Brighton and Liverpool. Modern football does not depend on positioning, and you have to keep up with the rhythm».In fact, this is a very important statement from the coach whose tactical philosophy based on «positioning» has dominated football for the past fifteen years. Over the past five years, quick and direct attacks on goal have increased, while the frequency and intensity of pressure on the opponent has decreased.
Regretting that Guardiola made these statements about modern football, he had already begun leading his team to play more directly on goal. If we compare what Manchester City presented in the 2023-2024 season and the 2024-2025 season, we find that the team's ball possession percentage declined from 65.5 percent to 61.3 percent, while the total number of quick attacks jumped from 22 to 30, an increase of 36 percent.Most notably, we saw more long balls from Ederson with the aim of breaking the opponent's high pressure, and more direct dribbles between the lines from Omar Marmoush, who joined the team last January (January).Marmoush appears to have been Manchester City's first deal on the road to rebuilding, which will move Guardiola, Linders and Manchester City to - style.like a Klopp
Since then, the team has signed more players who play in the same way, signing Ryan Sharqi and Tiani Reynders from Lyon and AC Milan respectively.Both deals, just as with Marmoush, indicate that Manchester City will rely more on passing the ball between the lines and fewer short passes in the form of triangles on the field.Simply put, Sharqi, Reynders and Marmoush are the type of players who prefer to play directly on goal and break through the lines.
Compared to the three players who participated most in the attacking midfield with Manchester City in the 2024-2025 season, we will find that Sharqi, Reynders and Marmoush were much better at launching the ball forward at least five meters towards the opponent's goal, and also better at «trying to make dribbles».Moreover, the signing of Ryan Ait Nouri also reflects Guardiola's desire to play like Klopp - or Linders – and completely change his coaching philosophy, after he had relied on midfielders or defenders in the right and left back positions over the past two seasons.In fact, Ait Nouri is one of the best offensive full-backs in Europe.
Like Manchester City's other three signings in 2025, Ait Nouri ranked second in successful dribbles among all defenders in the Premier League last season (63 dribbles) and sixth among full-backs in terms of attacking runs and the ball between his feet (89 runs).But the most impressive thing is that he was among the top three defenders in terms of contributing goals (11), expected assists (5.5) and touches inside the opponent's penalty area (96).The signing of Ait Nouri thus shows that Guardiola is tired of piling up midfielders in the team and has begun to give up a percentage of possession in order to play directly on goal.
So quite simply, Manchester City fans can now go from worrying about their team's slow and negative football to wondering how an explosive attacking duo like Ait Nouri and Jeremy Doku can work together on the left flank, or how Marmoush and Sharqi will fit into the same space in the attacking midfield position.There are certainly more questions than answers ahead of the start of the 2025-26 Premier League season, as most newcomers don't fit into Guardiola's usual style - either on the pitch or inside the locker room.Therefore, it is clear that Guardiola is working on something new. With Linders by his side, this could be the biggest turnaround in his coaching career yet!
