If you had no knowledge of football and you'd read the results in the newspaper, I could totally understand how you could compare the start of this season with the start of last season. But when you've been watching football closely for years and years, there really is no comparison between Guardiola and Pellegrini.
I was never convinced by Pellegrini from the moment he arrived. I actually used to get stick for it on a daily basis when results went well in his first season. But I thought he had no game plan, no structure to his team, made banal substitutions, played a suicidal offside trap with no midfield pressure on the ball, we were so easy to cut right through the middle of, and there was no plan B when things were going wrong. We won games and trophies in spite of Pellegrini, not because of him. The positive results were down to the individual brilliance of the players.
Contrast that to this season. There is a very clear structure to the team, a clear game plan. We are set up to play high, condense the play in the oppositions half, never be more than 10 yards from an opponent so if you lose it you can all close down together, defensively we mark the passing lines as opposed to the men meaning we can quickly intercept passes, we've had full backs slotting in to midfield to leave us less vulnerable to counter attacks through the middle, we've got a keeper who is comfortable 20 yards outside his box if need be to stop us being caught with a quick ball over the top. It's absolutely night and day compared to last season.
Last season I always thought we looked vulnerable to teams running through the middle of our midfield. We looked appalling when the back 4 was pressured on the ball. We were vulnerable to counter attacks. Our build up was often slow and predictable. I look at our team now and of course we won't win every game, but I look at it and think how do you beat us? It's very hard to out run us, it's very hard to out play us, it's very hard to catch us on the counter attack, our defenders are very comfortable under pressure, it would be hard to just knock it over the top against us. Whereas last season the reverse was true on all counts.
This season the only team I'm concerned about who might beat us is Liverpool because they probably will out run us and will adopt an insane press. That will be our biggest test. Everyone else I'm pretty confident we have the beating of. Last season I didn't go in to any game confident of winning, even at home. All a team had to do was put an extra man in midfield and hit us quickly when they won back possession.
It's far too simplistic to look at the first 5 games this season and first 5 last season and think they are comparable, maybe it will all go wrong again. Look at the bigger picture. Look at what Guardiola has achieved in his career, look at the improvements he's made to the team and to individuals already. I think you've completely underestimated the impact he's having.
