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When Kevin De Bruyne scored four goals against Wolves to tighten Manchester City’s grip on the Premier League title last May, Pep Guardiola described him as “unstoppable, brilliant, awesome, outstanding, perfect.”
With the new Premier League season just a week away Guardiola is again praising De Bruyne, but now for his unassuming nature off the field rather than his brilliance on it. “Humble.” “Shy.” “A normal guy”. “He doesn’t want to pretend to be something different than what he is.” “I like to work with players like Kevin who are a top-class player and behaves completely differently.”
Plainly Guardiola is holding up De Bruyne as an example — but to whom?
“If the guys who come are normal people then it’s so easy to integrate with the team,” the City coach said last week on tour in the US. “Maybe Kevin is the most important that we have. He’s always humble, and he’s happy (Erling) Haaland is here. Haaland has been really well. He looks like a really nice guy, down to earth.”
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This summer Guardiola said goodbye to obedient young men like Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus and welcomed a brash young superstar who has consciously based his persona on that of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who fell out with Guardiola at Barcelona 12 years ago.
Erling Haaland and Guardiola doesn’t seem an obvious meeting of minds, even less than Jack Grealish and Guardiola promised to be last season. Interestingly, Haaland has struck up an instant rapport on and off the pitch with Grealish, who assisted his first City goal in the friendly against Bayern Munich last week. The affinity is no surprise. They are both prodigies, not system players.
Haaland is a super-athlete with exceptional reactions and anticipation; despite his huge frame he has a cat-like ability to lunge and pounce on chances. His record since leaving Norway is 116 games, 115 goals: different teams, different managers, different systems, same outcome.
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And yet from Guardiola’s perspective, his game could do with some rounding-out. He doesn’t contribute much in the build-up. Guardiola wouldn’t be Guardiola if he didn’t try to rewire him. It will be fascinating to see if Haaland has the patience to allow it.
Grealish didn’t enjoy the process of being reprogrammed last season, most of which he spent on the periphery, his signature move being to control, pause, then pass forlornly back to João Cancelo. He didn’t start any Champions League knockout games.
Having a giant target in the box in the shape of Haaland might simplify and clarify the game for Grealish: if I can just hit Erling, he’ll do the rest. Will Guardiola sit back and let them at it? Almost everybody will be excited whenever they get the chance to see Grealish and Haaland play together, but Guardiola’s desires are ... unconventional.
At least nobody is doubting Haaland’s quality. Unlike the player who is being set up as his direct rival and opposite number in the grand narrative of the coming season. Liverpool’s Darwin Nuñez came on as substitute against Manchester United in Singapore and endured what used to be called a debut to forget, but is now a debut the internet will never allow you to forget.
No new signing has ever been consigned to donkey status this quickly or insanely, but life comes at you fast in the age of algorithmically amplified banter. “It’s like football fans — I’m not sure all, but some — don’t give people the chance to improve ... Thank God I am not like this” said Jurgen Klopp. Still, there is immediate pressure on Darwin. Liverpool have sold one of their rocks in Sadio Mané and the Uruguayan is their only big-money signing this summer. If he is slow to adapt it’s hard to see how they stop City winning a fifth title in six seasons.
Where might the other competition come from? Chelsea have been the closest team to the top two but as the Todd Boehly era gets under way, Thomas Tuchel has been sending out the distress signal. “I can’t guarantee we will be ready ... we need a huge amount of quality players”. So far he’s received Raheem Sterling and Khalidou Koulibaly. It’s not enough.
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Antonio Conte at Spurs seems happier this preseason, as he forces his players to run until they vomit and watches their suffering with a sadistic smile. His signings — Dejan Kulusevski, Rodrigo Bentancur, Ivan Perisic, Yves Bissouma, Richarlison — have all followed the same template: big strong guys who can play, like an updated version of Martin O’Neill’s old formula at Celtic. Spurs already look unrecognisably stronger than the mess Jose Mourinho left them with last year.
Conte’s squad of strapping six-footers contrasts with the new crop at Arsenal: Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel Jesus, Fabio Vieira and Marquinhos are all 5′9″ or shorter. We’re about to begin the 19th season since Arsenal’s last title, making this their longest drought since they first won the league in 1931. Next season will be the 20th, but no matter: the target for Mikel Arteta is to take this squad into the Champions League, a feat which he is yet to accomplish in four attempts.
They are currently the top spenders in the summer window and for the first time it looks like they probably have the squad to make the top four, but now the pressure is on: if Arteta fails again, he won’t get another go.
Manchester United, coming off their worst-ever Premier League season, expect immediate improvement under Erik Ten Hag. The new coach has thus far projected a tough and demanding persona, with a clear early emphasis on improving physical fitness and group discipline. It feels like the right approach for a squad that had stagnated under the relaxed regime of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and then disintegrated completely under the place holder Ralf Rangnick.
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The signings of Christian Eriksen and Lisandro Martinez are positive, but Ten Hag’s prospects will be clearer after the two biggest questions of the summer window are answered. First: is Frenkie de Jong ever going to arrive from Barcelona? The player’s reluctance to leave must ultimately give way to Barcelona’s determination to sell, but there remains the risk that another club — Chelsea have been mentioned — might try to hijack the deal.
De Jong could be a transformative player for United, who have lacked a game-running midfielder since Michael Carrick got old, but if the transfer somehow collapses they’ll need to come up with a new idea fast.
Equally vital is the question of whether they can get rid of Cristiano Ronaldo. Clearly, Ronaldo has been one of the greatest players of all time and he proved last season that he can still score, though not as often as he used to. The problem is that he gives nothing to the team other than these goals. You cannot play modern pressing football with a player who does no work off the ball and only runs when he thinks he might score.
Pressing is a numbers game and with Ronaldo in your team you’re already a man down. This alone would be a big enough problem for Ten Hag, who has been hired by Manchester United to reproduce the pressing football of his Ajax teams.
But Ronaldo’s presence has another effect, less obvious but maybe more damaging. We can all see him saving his energy on the field for those occasional scoring bursts. Now extend that principle to the whole week. At 37, he has to save his energy in training as well as matches. He cannot train with the intensity Ten Hag will be looking for as he seeks to whip United into shape, so if he is forced to be part of these sessions both he and the coach will have a problem.
Fortunately, Ronaldo wants to leave too; with both sides seeking the same outcome, surely a sensible solution can be found.
Barring a late flurry of signings, Saudi Newcastle, alas, will not be among the contenders. The Saudis have spent £150 million on new players since January, and Newcastle fans probably thought that was a lot of money until they realised Phil Mickelson got paid more than that to join LIV Golf. Have the new owners already been distracted by the glamour of their new golf tour, which, unlike Newcastle United, commands the attention of both ex-US president Donald Trump and much of the American corporate class?
As long as they’re paying Dustin Johnson more than they’re paying Newcastle’s entire squad, it does rather look that way.
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