With one press conference, Pep Guardiola elevated the concept of a “siege mentality” to a whole new level. This is Sir Alex Ferguson with bells and whistles on. This is the hairdryer at full blast. This is Jose Mourinho in overdrive. Even by Guardiola’s own previous standards, this was something special.
It is not them and us, but everyone against us. It is not club against club, it is one club against each other. It is one club against the league, against the world. Guardiola spoke about being “alone” and he clearly believes it.
In the Manchester City manager’s extraordinarily impassioned and defiant defense of the club being charged with 115 alleged breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules, there was one telling line in particular.
“We are not part of the establishment of this league,” Guardiola pronounced and while, strictly speaking, City were a founding member of the Premier League when it was formed in 1992, they were never part of the “establishment”. They have never felt welcome.
The establishment, in their eyes, are the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, with the others falling meekly into line. The “big five” who felt the most under threat from City once the Abu Dhabi takeover took place and once that was super-charged by Guardiola’s arrival in 2016.
Guardiola has never been about the establishment. He may have gone against that when he coached Bayern Munich, the royalty of German football, but his life as a player and coach at Barcelona was all about being outside of the status quo. He railed against authority. He has fought fiercely for Catalan independence. He defiantly wore the yellow ribbon.
City knew who they were wooing and how to woo him. It helped that allies from Barcelona in Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain were running the club and, of course, the vast amounts of money and resources undoubtedly made a difference.
But it also helped that City felt new, different and outside the establishment, trying to make their own history; to challenge the status quo. After all, their fans sing about whether they are really there.
Initially Guardiola was puzzled by this but, ultimately, it appealed to his counter-culture nature as he is fighting for City now and not caring who he upsets. Rightly or wrongly Guardiola has gone all in. He will certainly not think twice about name-checking the “Daniel Levys”, in reference to the Tottenham chairman, as those he has little time for.
City have always felt like outsiders but also, they believe, like the other clubs have tried to keep them like that. They point to the allegedly protectionist way their rivals operate and, in particular, Chelsea under Roman Abramovich who splurged cash and then tried to pull up the drawbridge when the City takeover happened by wholeheartedly endorsing the proposed Financial Fair Play rules.
There is a philosophical argument at play. Either FFP is a sensible way of encouraging responsible spending and organic growth or it is an arbitrary means of preventing ambition and good owner investment and stopping new money coming into the sport; of maintaining the elite.
City may well be right. The way they have been ganged up on does feel uncomfortable at times. Investment should be encouraged. We should not always want the same clubs – the establishment – to dominate. It feels wrong.
But they signed up to the rules and if they have broken them, they need to be punished. They deserve to be punished severely, no matter the grand standing from Guardiola. They also needed to have worked harder to try and change those rules rather than, as they stand accused, simply try and get around them instead. That is cheating.
Guardiola has no intention of working for another Premier League club – and certainly not Spurs
What does it all mean? In a sense, Guardiola has driven a wedge between City and the Premier League although, clearly, the schism was already there and was widened further by the announcement last Monday of the charges.
Having been cleared of wrong-doing by the Court of Arbitration in Sport, over-turning Uefa’s two-year ban from European competition – even if a large number of charges were time-barred – City will feel even more emboldened in their fight. And Guardiola will feel even more that they are being bullied and victimized.
The upshot of it all will undoubtedly be cooler relations. Not that Guardiola cares. He has no intention of working for another Premier League club – and certainly not Spurs – but intriguingly it might also have an effect on the pitch.
Any City player watching Guardiola will have been struck by how fired up and energetic he was. He will want them to feed off that. There have been times in the past couple of years when Guardiola has looked tired and in need of a break, which is why it was not a foregone conclusion that he would sign a new contract. Some close to him thought it was time for a break.
But he decided to stay and Guardiola has already lashed out at the complacency and “happy flowers” at the club. But this latest press conference was an external message and surely it will elicit a reaction from the team. The atmosphere against Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday will be feverish and Guardiola will demand that they hunt down Arsenal and win the title for the fifth time in six seasons. It would certainly be part of a new establishment.