break from management<\/a> once he leaves.<\/p>\nLike the great Sir Alex Ferguson did over at neighbours Manchester United, Guardiola will need to show he still has the desire to re-energise himself and his team in an attempt to overthrow Arne Slot’s Liverpool and return to the summit again.<\/p>\n
Not only has the playing squad been refreshed, but the coaching staff too. Jurgen Klopp’s former Liverpool assistant Pep Lijnders has joined in a similar role, and set-piece coach James French has also arrived from the Reds, while Kolo Toure was promoted from the youth set-up.<\/p>\n
But former City and Liverpool midfielder Dietmar Hamann has cast doubt over whether Guardiola has the ability to go again, telling BBC Radio 5 Live: “When a season starts, you’ve got to light a fire in a team, with the fans, and make people believe. And I’m not sure he’s got that fire any more.<\/p>\n
“I’m not sure they’re going to win another big title under Guardiola. I’d be surprised, to be honest.”<\/p>\n
Spanish football expert Guillem Balague added: “The fire that we see now – what we see in his eyes, in the jokes with his players and how he returned refreshed from the summer – can that continue until the end of the season?<\/p>\n
“He has a two-year contract until 2027 and 100% by the end of the two years he will not continue with club football. But nobody can say that may not happen earlier, that this could be his last season.<\/p>\n
“Is he excited because it is his last season or is it because he really feels he has a team in his hands which he can mould and create a new Manchester City, a third version?<\/p>\n
“If he sees himself having the ability to continue then we will see a second year but we will not see a third. We are seeing the end of Pep Guardiola as a manager.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last season will have been a shock to Guardiola, finishing outside of the top two for only the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-348626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115037378065686960","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}