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” Guardiola‘s style of football will not take root in England ,” said opponents fans during the 2016-17 season, which became the first for the Spaniard in the Premier League.
They also “rewarded” the trainer of the “townspeople” with the offensive nickname “Fraudiola” (English fraud – fraud, deception), which in our community took the form of “Bald charlatan”. To which Guardiola responded with a series of records set in 2018 and two consecutive championship titles.
This season, Pep won the third championship for Manchester City and equaled Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho, Bill Shankly and Stan Callis in the number of titles. In addition, Guardiola became only the second manager in English history to triumph in the elite division three times in his first five years.
Previously, only Kenny Dalglish at the head of Liverpool managed to do this. Clever quackery!
It was the third championship that Guardiola called the most difficult. Partially we can agree with this – after all, “Manchester City”, due to objective reasons (lack of more or less normal pre-season training, injuries and illness of the leaders) started very hard, and celebrated Catholic Christmas, being in eighth position in the standings.
On the other hand, unlike the 2018-2019 season, when Guardiola’s charges were one point ahead of Liverpool, the townspeople simply did not have a serious competitor. Torn apart by injuries, “Merseysides” withdrew from the championship race, losing six home games in a row. “Manchester United” has not yet found the stability to compete on an equal footing with neighbors over a long distance.
Chelsea were too raw and unkempt, which eventually led to a change of coach, and ”
Josep Guardiola should be grateful to fate for the fact that he had a chance to face a huge number of problems at the very start of the championship. The Spaniard got a kind of head start – the opportunity to be the first to feel fully what difficulties this unusual and exhausting season is fraught with. Having missed a number of key performers, the coach of the “townspeople” quickly realized what could be the key to success – the freshness of the players and the absence of serious injuries.
Guardiola achieved this through regular rotation. Fortunately, the financial capabilities of the club allowed the “townspeople” to collect the longest and highest quality bench. As a result, only three Manchester City outfield players have played at least 30 Premier League games: Rodri (34), Ruben Dias (32) and Raheem Sterling (31). Liverpool have seven of them: Andrew Robertson (38), Jorginho Wijnaldum (38), Mohamed Salah (37), Trent Alexander-Arnold (36), Roberto Firmino (36), Sadion Manet (35) and Fabinho (30). And Manchester United have even more – eight: Bruno Fernandes (37), Marcus Rashford (37), Aaron Van-Bissaka (34), Harry Maguire (34), Luke Shaw (32), Scott McTominay (32), Mason Greenwood (31), Fred (30).
The statistics of the number of minutes spent on the field looks even more revealing. Ruben Dias became the leader of Manchester City with a score of 2845 minutes. Four field players (Fernandes, Wan-Bissaka, Maguire and Rashford) spent more time with Manchester United, while Liverpool had five (Robertson, Salah, Alexander-Arnold, Wijnaldum and Firmino).
Other factors contributed to the rise of Manchester City. In particular, the continuing progress of Phil Foden, who pushed one of the leaders of previous years, Raheem Sterling, into the reserve, the universalism and tactical flexibility of football players (De Bruyne, Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, João Canselo, and Alexander Zinchenko can also be added here). In addition, the “townspeople” hit the bull’s-eye with the signing of Ruben Dias. The Portuguese’s influence on the team is comparable to that of Virgil van Dijk at Liverpool. Dias immediately became the leader of the defense of “Manchester City”, and next to him finally revealed John Stones, who was going to show the door at the Etihad next summer. Best recognition of Ruben’s contribution to the Citizens’ championship was the award of the title of the best football player of the season according to the Football Journalists Association of England. By the way, the Portuguese became the first defender in the history of the Premier League to receive this prize.
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Thanks for everything, Legend!
For ten years of playing for the club, Sergio Aguero managed to become a cult figure for Manchester City. In the debut season, the Argentine helped the “townspeople” to win the first championship in 44 years, scoring in the last seconds of stoppage time, the “golden” goal against the QPR. Five and a half years later, Kuhn broke Eric Brook’s record to become Manchester City’s top scorer.
This season turned out to be the most difficult and, perhaps, unsuccessful in his career for Aguero. The coronavirus and frequent injuries left the Argentine on the sidelines for a long time and led to the fact that the striker played only 719 minutes in all tournaments (almost 8 full matches), in which he scored six goals. But with “Manchester City”, as well as with the Premier League itself, “Kuhn” said goodbye royally, as befits a true legend. In the last round, Aguero, coming on as a substitute, scored a double against Everton and broke Wayne Rooney’s record for goals for one club – 184 against 183 for the Englishman. Interestingly, this was only the second time for Kuhn that he scored two goals since coming on as a substitute. The striker first did this trick in his Premier League debut against Swansea.
Aguero’s legacy in the Premier League includes: record for goals per club (184 in 275 games), most hat-tricks (12), most teams he has scored (32 out of 33) …
STATISTICS NEVER LIES
What trophies has Pep Guardiola won?
But Guardiola’s third Premier League title was verified when Leicester beat the club’s arch nemesis Manchester United 2-1 at Old Trafford on Tuesday evening. It makes nine league winners medals overall in his managerial career, having won three each at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and now City. May 11, 2021
Did Guardiola win Champions League?
Pep Guardiola won two titles as manager of Barcelona in 2009 and 2011.
How many trophies did Guardiola win at Barcelona?
14 trophies, His record of 14 trophies in four seasons has made him the most successful coach in Barcelona’s history.
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