“I must be a really, really good manager!” – Pep Guardiola delivers brilliant monologue on Manchester City’s evolution | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola has provided a detailed breakdown of the difference in his side’s far-removed style of play this season after years of possession-heavy football.

Manchester City underwent a significant shuffle of their squad in the summer as newly-appointed director of football Hugo Viana orchestrated a thorough audit of first-team roster and sanctioned the exits of several senior stars integral to the club’s success under Guardiola.

Kevin De Bruyne, Ederson, Ilkay Gundogan, Kyle Walker, Scott Carson and James McAtee all left, with the Blues trimming the wage bill further with loan agreements with Everton and Inter Milan for Jack Grealish and Manuel Akanji respectively.

City are undergoing a period of transition as Guardiola and his new-look backroom staff team – comprising Pepijn Lijnders, Kolo Toure and James French – assess the squad options at their disposal and forge a new style of play for the seasons to come.

Early season losses to Tottenham and Brighton exposed the defensive frailties that were a key underlying theme of Manchester City’s struggles last term, wherein the Blues recorded their lowest points tally in the Premier League under Guardiola (71) en route to a third-place finish.

However, City have turned a corner since the international break and have picked up an impressive seven points from a week’s worth of games against Manchester United, Napoli and Arsenal ahead of Wednesday’s Carabao Cup third-round clash with Huddersfield Town.

Eyebrows were raised at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday as Manchester City resorted to an uncharacteristically conservative park-the-bus strategy to protect a one-goal lead against title rivals Arsenal – a tactic that worked to near-perfection before Gabriel Martinelli’s injury-time lob over Gianluigi Donnarumma salvaged a 1-1 draw for the Gunners.

“I said many times, I would say – jokes aside – for the fact that always when we won the Premier League, we were a boring team, right? So that’s why I said okay, I’m going to make counter-attacks more this season,” Guardiola said as he dissected a shift in his side’s approach to games this term.

“Maybe the players in the future can talk about how much I changed this season compared to the other ones. Maybe they are the most credible to talk about if really, really I changed the approach because they are in every meeting, they are in every game, they are in every post-meeting, post-game. You can ask them.

“I think it’s completely the same, completely. What changed is the opponents play a different way, we are not able to do it better. I said after the game (on Sunday), Arsenal were better. I don’t like to play in the way we played at Arsenal, but there are a lot of things I love it, I love it, I didn’t have it in the past and I love it.

“And I said in this press conference, but the way we want to play and sustaining that. Always I believe when I started being a football player with Johan Cruyff and the teams make man-to-man, always said to me, ‘When you have the ball, Pep, as a holding midfielder, look (for) Romario. Look up front!’.

“Why should I be close when that guy is being marked and this guy is being marked and this guy is being marked? I have to play there (long). Because there he’s one against one. You play and it’s against one against one. And you want to play one against one Erling (Haaland)? Play one against one Erling! If you lose that duel, it will be a goal.

“We’ll see what happens, right? So read that situation because before we have one more player to do the process and doing that. Against Napoli, we changed the way we play against Napoli? Three days later, we changed our way to play. Phwoar, I’m really good, changing absolutely everything in three days. I must be a really, really good manager!

“Sometimes the opponents are good and create the challenges that you cannot handle and the other one. But since I retire in this club, or I retire, I would love to play in the way I want to play. Sometimes we are not able, sometimes we are not good, sometimes the opponent is better. But for one game it’s bad and saying that the team is going.

“Yeah, I want to make the transition. When we defend deep, always I say, ‘When we defend deeper because they are better or we are shit, you can run, run. You can run on transition, run’. But it’s because we are there. But in the principles, I prefer to regain up the pitch, and make a lot of possession to de-structure the opponents, to try to punish them.

“Always I’ve been like that and always I will be like that. If it doesn’t happen, I tell you what, it’s because we were bad, we were not good. Not because we want to do that. That is, I would say.”

City return to Premier League duties on Saturday when Kyle Walker and Burnley visit the Etihad Stadium, with the Blues expected to revert to their possession-based and control-heavy style of play against the Clarets.