The 10 years Pep Guardiola spent at Manchester City represent one of the greatest acts of dynasty-building in the sporting universe.

Not only did the Catalan coach City to six Premier League titles, five League Cups, three FA Cups, one UEFA Champions League crown and one at the FIFA Club World Cup, he did so by assembling multiple great sides, revolutionising tactics, and constantly reinventing himself.

Dominant reign

Guardiola’s six Premier League trophies are second only to Alex Ferguson’s 13 at Manchester United, and even in the four years when City did not win the top prize, it stayed in the top three. No other coach won more than one Premier League title during Guardiola’s time in England.

When such a king abdicates the throne and leaves his kingdom, as Guardiola did at the end of the 2025-26 campaign, there is bound to be an almighty jostle among those below to be the immediate heir. The 2026-27 Premier League season, which got underway late on Friday (August 21), will be the battleground to decide whom the power is transferred to.

The setting is conducive for an intriguing competition. City without Guardiola will be one of nine clubs to have new coaches, and two others in Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur did not have Michael Carrick and Roberto De Zerbi in place at the start of the year.

Mikel Arteta, who secured Arsenal its first English top-flight crown in 22 years, is the most experienced, having been in the job for a little over six years and seven months. Unai Emery, who masterminded Aston Villa’s 2025-26 Europa League triumph, is next, with a stint now at roughly three years and 10 months.

Though Guardiola has exited the scene, his giant shadow still looms. Enzo Maresca, who has replaced the 55-year-old at the Etihad, and Arteta have served as his assistants. Xabi Alonso, installed as Chelsea’s new manager, was once Guardiola’s midfield marshal at Bayern Munich.

The post-Pep Premier League era will not have a clean break in terms of tactics too, for Guardiola has left a deep imprint, both in terms of the first principles he introduced, and how he evolved and shed his orthodoxies to cater to the League’s fast-changing demands.

When he first arrived, Guardiola was a cleric of the possession-heavy school and was canonical in his belief that retaining the ball was the best route to success. So much so that even goalkeepers weren’t spared; one of his first decisions at City was to replace Joe Hart, a top-class shot-stopper, with Claudio Bravo, a ball-playing goalie.

And it felt like the league as a whole — with the glorious exception of Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United — was trying to inculcate parts of it.

Guardiola then changed tack to embrace high-energy players and those with great individual skills in order to adjust to the breathless, end-to-end football that the likes of Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool) and Mauricio Pochettino (Tottenham) introduced. The controlled aggression of the earlier years made way for a more expressive and expansive style.

Philosophical blasphemy

And in his last four seasons in charge, he played with one of world football’s purest strikers in Erling Haaland. For a man who once made Lionel Messi turn out as a False 9, and then won two Premier League trophies in 2020-21 and 2021-22 with midfielders as top-scorers (Ilkay Gundogan with 13 goals and Kevin de Bruyne 15), to have Haaland score 112 times over four campaigns would have been akin to philosophical blasphemy.

However, football is now more direct and physical than in recent times and it is to Guardiola’s credit that he tweaked his methods and put in place a blueprint for success. “You need to adapt, evolve,” City’s Maresca said recently. “Set-pieces, man to man — it’s a little bit the direction where football is going. We managers… it’s our duty to find solutions.”

Who among Arteta, Carrick, Alonso, Andoni Iraola and Maresca will answer the call? For one, the sight of Arteta, Carrick and Alonso walking briskly up and down the touchline is sure to remind fans of their glory days as players for Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool not so long ago. For a certain generation, it will appear like they are reliving a childhood dream.

Arteta has the first-mover advantage, having already won the League and possessing a winning combination. The addition of Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle for GBP 75 million will reduce the inordinate burden on midfielder Declan Rice. But Arsenal’s unsuccessful pursuit of Vinicius Junior suggests that the outfit is mindful of the need of a world-class threat upfront.

Carrick, who took over at Old Trafford after the sacking of Ruben Amorim, had an impressive stint as caretaker manager, winning 12 and drawing three of his 17 matches in 2025-26, and helping United qualify for the Champions League after a two-season hiatus. The question before the astute 45-year-old is whether his United has the quality to sustain simultaneous domestic and continental challenges.

For Alonso, Chelsea is the opportunity to light up an aura that has seemingly dimmed after a failed seven-month stint as Real Madrid’s boss. The 44-year-old is known to possess a shrewd tactical brain, and his role in ending Bayern Munich’s hegemony in Germany — 11 straight Bundesliga titles from 2012-13 to 2022-23 — by leading a young Bayer Leverkusen side to its maiden crown is noteworthy. The addition of 24-year-old English attacking midfielder Morgan Rogers for a whopping GBP 117 million shows that he has Chelsea’s wholehearted trust.

Andoni Iraola’s ascent to the top job at Liverpool after making a mark at Bournemouth is eerily similar to Graham Potter’s entry into Chelsea in 2022 after a stellar show at Brighton & Hove Albion. But Potter was dismissed in less than seven months, a fate Iraola will want to avoid.

The 44-year-old is agnostic to any style of play that is not front-footed, a factor that endeared him to the Liverpool hierarchy after a dreary end to Arne Slot’s time. Can he manage to keep the club faithful happy without the services of Mohamed Salah, who left after nine glorious years?

Tough act to follow

Maresca’s situation at City is comparable to what David Moyes faced at United after the latter succeeded Ferguson in 2013. The Italian’s first test will be to not get crushed under the burden of expectations after Guardiola’s supremely successful tenure. It helps that City is not known to be trigger-happy, for both Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini enjoyed tenures lasting three years or more before Guardiola arrived.

Maresca also comes with a certain pedigree, having led Chelsea to FIFA Club World Cup glory in 2025, and has added England midfielder Elliot Anderson for a hefty GBP 116 million fee. But he will have to compete without the talismanic World Cup winner Rodri, who has shifted to Barcelona, and fellow playmaker Bernardo Silva, who has moved to Real Madrid.

Will he be guided by the spirit of Guardiola or will the ghost of Guardiola haunt him?

Mikel Arteta, manager of Arsenal celebrates with the Premier League trophy after the Premier League match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal at Selhurst Park on May 24, 2026 in London, England.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Football managers lead uncertain lives. Especially when they have been hired by big clubs. Owners and fans have short memories. A string of middling results is all it takes for speculation about a manager’s future to run wild. Before long, the rumours become reality.

Arne Slot guided Liverpool to a Premier League title in 2024-25 and was sacked a season later because the Reds finished fifth. Every manager who accepts a position at a top club is aware of its perils, but the challenge, the opportunity and the reward the job offers are irresistible.

Recruitment season

The latest to sign up for this life in England are Xabi Alonso, Andoni Iraola and Enzo Maresca. The three men are linked, having been part of a hot-seat shuffle. Maresca exited Chelsea, which hired Alonso, who many thought was a favourite to take the reins at Liverpool, which recruited Iraola, who was also interviewed by Chelsea.

Chelsea has tasked Alonso with reviving its fortunes after a turbulent, trophy-less season. The 44-year-old Spaniard is the fifth permanent appointment under Chelsea’s big-spending BlueCo ownership, following Graham Potter, Mauricio Pochettino, Maresca and Liam Rosenior.

Coached by Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti, Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez, Alonso rose to prominence at Bayer Leverkusen, where he guided the club to a historic unbeaten Bundesliga title in the 2023-24 campaign, along with the German Cup and a run to the Europa League final.

Alonso, who had cut his coaching teeth at Real Madrid (youth academy) and Real Sociedad (reserve team), demonstrated his prowess as an adroit tactician in Germany. Having to combat a Bayern Munich side with better players and bigger resources, he fashioned inventive solutions. His ideas were modern and progressive, bolstered by a rigorous structure.

That success earned him a return to Real Madrid as head coach, but his spell was reportedly affected by internal tensions, including clashes with several senior players such as Federico Valverde and Vinicius Jr. He was ‌sacked in January, less than eight months after taking charge.

Understandably, Alonso had reservations about the Chelsea job. The club has spent 1.8 billion pounds on signings since BlueCo took charge in 2022, but the money has yielded neither stability nor progress. He reportedly needed reassurance from the club’s top brass that he would have real influence at Stamford Bridge after his disillusioning Madrid experience.

According to The Athletic, Alonso signalled his desire to build a team of “mentality monsters”, capable of establishing themselves at the top of the Premier League. “There is great talent in the squad,” he said. “Now the focus is on hard work, building the right culture and winning trophies.”

It will be interesting to witness Alonso’s tactical approach at Chelsea. During his career, he has employed both a back three (3-4-3) and a back four (4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, 4-4-2). A common coaching intention, irrespective of formation, is his emphasis on central progression and penetration.

Alonso demands a lot from his players; indeed, his ‘failure’ at Madrid, experts felt, was a consequence of the attacking superstars refusing to work without the ball. Will he be able to convince the Chelsea squad to run all game in the Premier League, which has become even more physical and intense?

One advantage Alonso has is a light fixture schedule, with Chelsea missing out on Europe. This means more time on the training ground to seed his ideas. He will also have a fresher squad than England’s other big clubs — a considerable advantage in a packed post-World Cup season.

Ticking the right boxes

While many expected Alonso to head to Merseyside to replace Slot, given the former midfielder’s playing history at Liverpool, the Reds chose a different Basque-born coach. Iraola, who oversaw a significant upturn in Bournemouth’s fortunes, getting the side to compete with bigger, richer clubs despite routinely losing its best players, ticked the right boxes for Liverpool.

His success at implementing a high-pressing and progressive style of football, centred around attacking swiftly, was a decisive factor in his appointment. That approach, Liverpool’s bosses thought, would work well at Liverpool, renowned for its high-octane brand of ⁠football under Jurgen Klopp, a style that the great Mohamed Salah urged the club to revive.

Indeed, the more sedate football under Slot in 2025-26 was a major reason for the club losing faith in him. That is unlikely to be a problem with Iraola. The 43-year-old’s influences include former Barcelona manager Ernesto Valverde and the messianic Marcelo Bielsa, but his approach is uniquely his own: a disruptive, hard-running, direct style.

“We like to attack fast, use the width of the pitch, overlaps and a lot of crosses, high press,” Iraola once said about his teams. “Most of the games we win are the more open ones, where there are more chances, where we can exploit one-on-one situations on the outside and find wider spaces.” Those words could well be used to describe a Klopp side!

Iraola faces a challenging task of resuscitating Liverpool, while also having to contend with the absence of Salah, who had been the club’s main source of goals for the better part of the past decade. In Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike, Iraola has access to some of the most expensive, elite attacking talent in football, but he will have to maximise them.

The high-profile job also represents a significant step up for the young manager, who excelled in underdog situations at Rayo Vallecano and Bournemouth. How will he handle the expectations at one of Europe’s biggest clubs?

In some aspects, Maresca has the trickiest assignment of the three. There is the thankless task of filling Guardiola’s shoes, but the uncertainty ahead of the season is an even bigger wrinkle.

Manchester City and Chelsea have been locked in negotiations over a compensation package following Maresca’s dramatic departure from Chelsea in January after talking about “the worst 48 hours” of his tenure. Chelsea’s awareness of City’s interest in Maresca back in October, when he was still contracted at Stamford Bridge, has made it a complicated situation.

City also awaits the verdict on the 115 charges of alleged breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules. Some reports in the English media have claimed that the verdict will be out in the summer; if that transpires, Maresca will have to deal with a situation he has little control over.

The Guardiola question

The Italian will have certain comforts to fall back on. He was a part of City’s backroom staff under Guardiola when the club won the treble in 2023, so he knows the set-up. His style is heavily inspired by Guardiola’s fundamental tenets, built on the ideas of positional play. But Guardiola changed to a less controlled, more direct style, even using a shot-stopper in Gianluigi Donnarumma, who isn’t comfortable with the ball at his feet. Which path will Maresca pick?

Guardiola has backed his former assistant, but as those who succeeded Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger found out, replacing a generational manager is a daunting prospect.

Manchester City’s players react after the Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Everton in Liverpool, on May 4, 2026
| Photo Credit: AP