“Won’t somebody please think of Pep Guardiola?”
This is, in essence, what Emilio Perez de Rozas is trying to get at in his opinion piece for Sport on Tuesday, after the Manchester City manager made some odd statement about the ‘end of his career’ already being in motion.
Add on top of that a very awkward and rather childish post-game interview following his side’s 2-1 win over Burnley despite Fernandinho’s sending off, and Perez de Rozas cannot help but try to convince everyone to gather around Catalonia’s prodigal son in some sort of protection rallying call.
Continuing by stating that ‘the attitude of the British public and criticism’ towards Guardiola ‘has a lot of Brexit’ about it, Perez de Rozas asks the very important question: “Who would want Guardiola to leave England?”
If results don’t go their way, our guess would be Manchester City’s hierarchy, but that isn’t the case for now.
The Premier League side currently sit third in the table, having won four of their last five games, albeit with one extra game over Arsenal and Tottenham in fourth and fifth respectively.
Sure, they’re not up there with Chelsea, but what the London team are currently doing is pretty unique.
The season is long, and with 18 games left to go, a lot can happen between now and May.
Overall, it’s simple. People just had very high expectations regarding Guardiola after all he had achieved at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and rightly so, but the Spanish manager hasn’t met them at Manchester City. Yet.
He might never do it, and that would be a shame, but to claim he is being pushed out by unfair criticism after just six months or so in charge is ridiculous.
City will give him the time he needs. They believe in what he is doing, and that’s where we should leave it for now.
