Pep Guardiola signing on for another year means Liverpool’s decade long rivalry with Manchester City is set to continue…
PEP Guardiola stays.
Inevitable, somewhat. And yes it does relate to Liverpool. Where have you been for the past decade?
Liverpool have been Manchester City’s business since 2013-14. Their perennial sense of imposter syndrome means they must be seen mingling in the company of the very biggest.
City haven’t always been Liverpool’s. We’ve been climbing the mountain and falling down it at times, while they’ve pretty much picnicked at its apex, taking in the views. Looking down on the world in every sense.
This version of City loves to pick fights with governing bodies, with the order, with title rivals. The off-pitch stuff is exhausting and infuriating from a Liverpool perspective. Nobody is asking for medals in lieu of any potential financial wrongdoing which may come to be proven.
We would much rather the entire episode wasn’t allowed to get to this point.
But Guardiola stays, and that means more inevitability, more brilliance, definitely more Bernado Silva.
His perpetual weirdness makes him difficult to pin. I thought about writing how he was destined to rival Liverpool in the manner of someone like Jose Mourinho and all he stood for in 2005.
I couldn’t because Guardiola is much more aloof than we at times realise. He remains his own man. Someone who seemingly always has half an eye elsewhere.
For all the talk of City being primed for Pep in 2015 – a blank slate of a club in which he can write his own destiny and create in his identity – it remains and is increasingly void of personality, despite the trophies.
This is perhaps unfair and almost certainly contextualised by our own Jurgen Klopp experience. Klopp’s ability to mould Liverpool to his own mindset was what propelled Liverpool to challenge them.
While I still have no idea what Guardiola thinks about City’s at times half-arsed support and half-empty stadiums, I guarantee I’d have known what Klopp thought within a week.
Indeed, Klopp’s eternal gift to Liverpool was the reminder of who we are. To awaken the sense of responsibility on its support to play a role when required. To win together.
That mantle has been carried under Arne Slot. He is neither Guardiola or Klopp in makeup. Slot pours water on anything that simmers and keeps his focus on what he can influence.
We’re yet to see what a Slot and Guardiola version of Liverpool and City going at it looks like.
The moving parts make this far from a certainty. Arsenal are a massive part of the conversation. Chelsea and Manchester United might come again. City might not be in the Premier League much longer.
One thing is certain, for Liverpool to win they must set the barometer one notch above City and Guardiola to give themselves the best chance.
Funny things can happen in this world. People can lose their edge. Old can replace new. Decisions can be wrong whether you stay or go.
Guardiola staying means he’s still hungry. He cited the four defeats recently as a reason to extend. The best rarely know when to bow out. Their ego won’t let them make peace with anytime feeling like the right one.
So, two more years of the mad professor. The brilliant weirdo. A movie villain who keeps walking out of car wreckages and burning infernos. Always coming up behind you. Behind every ominous turn.
This has been a season of flux and of new things arriving. Uncertainty reigns supreme. Liverpool are top of the league and nobody wants to acknowledge its credibility.
One thing has just been settled: Pep Guardiola isn’t leaving yet. He will be our business whether we like it or not.
For some reason, this doesn’t feel as daunting as before.
Buy Dan Morgan’s book ‘Jürgen Said To Me’ on Klopp, Liverpool and the remaking of a city…
