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    Soccer News: Manchester City 2021-22: Grealish’s signing and Kane’s chase mean a shock for Guardiola?

    As Jack Grealish begins training at Etihad Campus and Harry Kane continues not to train in Florida, it is worth mentioning that Pep Guardiola left a warning in plain sight that Manchester City would be the prime mover and agitator in the transfer market. transfer this year.

    Speaking to Rio Ferdinand about BT Sport ahead of their May Champions League final defeat to Chelsea, Guardiola reflected on the ingredients needed for lasting success, having already won three of the last four Premier League titles on offer.

    “Did you have the same team when you won your sixth Premier League as you did the first?” asked former Manchester United defender Ferdinand.

    “You have to tremble, you have to move. With the same guys, it’s almost impossible. We change. After defeats or a victory, we change “.

    Such are Guardiola’s talents within the City squad, Britain’s record outlay of £ 100m to secure Grealish has brought much mockery. Kane will cost more and, should a bid go through with Tottenham president Daniel Levy, it will be the same story.

    But the head of the City knew what he was talking about and who he was talking to. In 2002, Ferdinand joined United from Leeds United for a UK record of £ 30m. That deal usurped the £ 28.1m commission Alex Ferguson requested to bring Juan Sebastian Veron from Lazio a year earlier. In 2004, United made Wayne Rooney (£ 27m) the most expensive teenager in world football.

    Even as the 1998-99 great United squad went on to win the next two Premier Leagues, Ferguson decided he had to shake. He had to move. Despite the successes of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal and Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea earlier this century, this thirst to improve from a position of strength has allowed United to dominate again.

    LEGACY SIGNATURES

    Comparisons with Ferguson will no doubt be grateful to many City faithful, but Guardiola’s geography and scale of success to date – eight major accolades in the past four seasons – mean they’re easy to achieve.

    The former Barcelona manager became the first manager to keep the Premier League after the great Scotsman and, as he tries to repeat that feat, another Fergusonismo has been put in his door.

    Last season, some observers claimed that Guardiola had built his second big City team. Team building and re-building were an art form perfected at United in the 1990s and 2000s and the shorter periods of the modern era mean that today’s elite coaches are rarely called upon to perform such a daunting task. .

    Guardiola certainly adapted the contemporary model to Barça and Bayern Munich, working with bristling intensity for four and three seasons respectively before retiring in the feeling that the parts on both sides of the player / manager gap were burned to some degree.

    You just had to study the City manager from the sideline as a team with a group of youth players who won recent friendlies against Preston North End, Barnsley and Blackpool to see that a lot of that intensity remains. But the combination of ideal working conditions under old Barcelona allies Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano, coupled with the lack of a tumultuous Camp Nou policy or former big players like Bayern, convinced the 50-year-old that Manchester is a place to shine. his legacy with longevity.

    A contract extension signed in November last year means Guardiola will remain head of the City until June 2023, at which point he will have completed seven seasons.

    Club top scorer Sergio Aguero leaving at the end of last season means that only captain Fernandinho, Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling from the pre-Guardiola years remain and the latter two signed a year before his arrival when the direction of travel of the City was fairly well signposted.

    The arrival of Grealish and the potential capture of Kane for another nine-figure outlay looks like a significant turning point in a way that 2020-21, with its reversed full-backs, false nines and impromptu fixes, hasn’t. A new chapter begins with Saturday’s Community Shield match against Leicester City at Wembley.

    THE CITY OF GUARDIOLA 2.0

    Guardiola’s third Premier League title and fourth consecutive EFL Cup don’t tell the story of a new team being methodically put together. From the point where City lost 2-0 at Tottenham last November, which left them 11th in the Premier League with 12 points from eight games, it has been a story of shrewd adjustment and pragmatism within the distinctive style of the club. ‘trainer.

    “I said we have to go back to our first principle. We started to rebuild and rebuild the team, “said Guardiola.” We have been successful in the past and [we had to] go back to our position game, move the ball faster, make more passes, stay more in position, run less with the ball “.

    City have adapted better than any other Premier League team to the penalties of pandemic football. The effective pressing that is a hallmark of all of Guardiola’s teams was evident: 377 high turnovers and 80 high turnovers (open play sequences starting within 40 meters of the opponent’s goal) were the best numbers in the Premier League. .

    This is despite City conceding 11.5 passes per defensive play (PPDA), putting them in sixth place in a category led by Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds Untied and his angry pressing (9.3 PPDA).

    The conclusion to be drawn here is that City chose their moments wisely, rather than relentlessly torment their opponents. Though their press wavered during their mild 2019-20 title defense, their PPDA was 10.1.

    In possession they were equally methodical. City’s direct speed – the meters per second it was advancing on open court – was the slowest in the Premier League. Opta’s direct-speed 1.1 figure for champions in 2020-21 compares to 1.4 when they won the championship with 100 points for the first time under Guardiola in 2017-18 and 1.3 when they fought with the nails and with his teeth with Liverpool to keep him.

    In addition to the key addition of talismanic center-back Ruben Dias, slowing down in this way helped City to be more solid on defense, even if there was a price paid on the other side of the pitch.

    His goals (83) and shots on target (216) in the Premier League have been fewer than any season since Guardiola’s trophy-free debut in 2016-17. City’s 599 overall shots were the last of his tenure and dropped from 745 in 2019-20, recording 68.9 for target goals (xG) having been between 80 and 94 for the previous three seasons.

    Despite their range of creative midfield talent, City made 1,164 passes in the opposition area, never having scored below 1,300 in the Guardiola era. In 2018-19, they made 1,522.

    This wasn’t a big deal, of course, but the way City moved on to Chelsea after Kai Havertz scored the only goal in Porto was troubling. Thomas Tuchel’s side scored a 1-0 win in relative comfort and City’s xG of 0.45 was the second lowest in any game Guardiola managed.

    ATTACK WITH JACK UP

    Those early title wins for Guardiola in England featured an attacking line with the electrifying winger talents of Leroy Sane and Sterling in the foreground.

    Sane is now at Bayern Munich and, after last year’s mid-season changes, Sterling struggled and lost his starting spot. Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez have generally started both sides of a false nine as the importance of players being able to provide the “extra pass” has become a Guardiola mantra.

    The pound returns invigorated from a fabulous Euro 2020, but Grealish is no more a direct replacement for Sane than was Ferran Torres a year ago. The qualities of the English playmaker and those of his international captain Kane suggest that Guardiola is eager to keep control of 2020-21 and increase offensive efficiency.

    Despite missing 12 games through injury, Grealish provided 10 assists in the Premier League last season. De Bruyne (12) and Kane (14) were two of the three players above him, with the Spurs forward topping the table in terms of goals and assists.

    Grealish beat De Bruyne by 81-80 in terms of chances created, while his lead was 70-58 in terms of chances created on play. City’s record signing also surpassed De Bruyne in terms of expected assists (xA) with 6.52 to 6.21, indicating the high quality of chances created by his passing.

    After the departure of David Silva and Sane, the creative burden probably fell too heavily on De Bruyne. Joan Cancelo (45) and Mahrez (44) were the second best of the City squad for the chances created, while the Belgian maestro created 19 of what Opta classifies as “big chances”. This put him second only to Bruno Fernandes (20) in the division, but none of his teammates hit the double digits. Grealish created 14 of these opportunities.

    WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

    “I think everyone knows how much I admire Kevin and it will be a dream come true to play alongside him,” Grealish said in his interview with City’s home media channel on Thursday.

    Without Silva and Sane’s axis down the left channel, De Bruyne’s role at City changed last season, with Guardiola giving him a broader brief in midfield, as well as pivoting the 30-year-old and Bernardo Silva like his two main false nine options.

    As a result, his touches on the right side of the opponent’s half – in the spaces he prowls to deliver those “score me!” crosses – fell an average of 7.2 for 90 minutes compared to 2019-20, when De Bruyne delivered a record 20 assists in the Premier League.

    He made more touches in the central areas and averaged 4.6 more out of 90 on the left side, where Grealish likes to operate.

    A report from The Athletic stated that Guardiola intends to use Grealish as an option in the left eighth position in his 4-3-3, often occupied by Ilkay Gundogan as the German international enjoyed the most prolific season of his career.

    Grealish would pose a different threat, not least with his exceptional dribbling ability. His 60 shots finished with a shot on goal last season were the best in the division, one ahead of Kane. Of these, 37 chances have been created for teammates and the extent to which the 25-year-old occupies defenders should free De Bruyne to thrive where he can deliver those balls that forwards love – not to say his delivery from the left is particularly shabby.

    “When I watch De Bruyne play, he is a special and special player and some of the balls I see him put on for City are just a striker’s dream if I’m being honest,” Kane told Gary Neville’s Overlap podcast in May, demonstrating his aptitude for subtlety is not on par with his poaching goal.

    “He is an exceptional player with the ball, off the ball, pressing, but his delivery is the best I’ve ever seen to be honest.”

    Should Kane follow Grealish in realizing his De Bruyne dream, Guardiola will field a retaining squad that crushed the competition last season and backed by a goal threat at least equal to his initial City setup.

    If he manages to tie it all together, and history suggests a very decent record in that regard, it represents a chilling prospect for the rest of the elite in England and Europe.

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