It is not Pep Guardiola’s job to be affable with the media. It shouldn’t be regarded as a moral failing on his part that he reacted in a rather grumpy and sarcastic manner to questions from journalists. He is not there to smile and dance for our pleasure; he is there to make Manchester City successful, and based purely on recent results, with four wins from the last five matches, that seems to be going reasonably well.
Nevertheless, Guardiola’s performance in a few different engagements with the media after Monday’s 2-1 win over Burnley was unusual at best. One could understand a manager being monosyllabic and unwilling to engage with the whims of television had his team lost, but after a tough victory it was curious.
“You’re the journalist,” was his answer to two separate interviewers when they asked about the red card issued to Fernandinho during the game. When it was pointed out that he didn’t seem terribly happy about the victory, he said, “More than you believe,” with a rictus grin like a man unwrapping an unwanted gift.
Guardiola often looks like he’d rather be anywhere else when talking to the press. He treats many questions with disdain and on Monday he got up at the end of his news conference thinking it was over, only for another question to be posed. He slumped back in his seat like a truculent child.
Was Guardiola’s reaction a reflection of his frustration with the City team? As anyone who has read even a little bit about his character knows, Guardiola is a frantic perfectionist who not only wants to win but do so in the manner of his ideals. Results alone do not seem to be enough for him. He wants to do something nobody has done before.
“Pep will never be satisfied,” Bayern Munich midfielder Thiago Alcantara once said of his former boss. “He’ll never enjoy football because he’s always looking for what has gone wrong in order to correct it. Pep is never happy. He’s a perfectionist.”
But ultimately it works.
“It has been difficult,” said Philipp Lahm after Guardiola’s first season at Bayern. “But it was also necessary after we had won everything. Pep wanted to teach us something new.”
It’s just that the process can become frustrating, and City are in the middle of it.
To watch Guardiola on the touchline is to see a man who appears to be going through nine types of pain and frustration, like a man who has bought a brand new gadget and can’t get it to work for love or money. Granted, even with his best and most dominant Bayern and Barcelona squads he was never a placid character, but at the moment there’s a look of despair on his face that suggests he simply isn’t satisfied with the way his team are playing.
And with good reason. On paper City’s recent form might be good, but their play hasn’t been particularly special. In the first half against Arsenal they were dominated. Against Hull, in Guardiola’s words, City “forgot where the goal was” in the first half, then a penalty set them on their way again. They were beaten by Liverpool, after which Guardiola was spotted in heated conversation with City director of football Txiki Begiristain.
And then, against Burnley, his City team played as if frightened of their own shadows, so timid and uncertain as to inspire remarkable gymnastics of irritation from their manager on the sidelines. His selection of assistants received a fearful ear-bashing as successive players ostensibly lacked the confidence to take a decisive shot while others misplaced passes and hit crosses into the shins of the first man.
Guardiola’s relationship with most of the City squad is said to be pretty good, but he looks like a man profoundly unhappy with how limited some of those players are. This is not to absolve him entirely of the blame for their uneven showings, but players such as Jesus Navas, Aleksandar Kolarov and even Raheem Sterling, when off form and low on confidence, are not of the standard he is used to. Not, perhaps, of the standard required to play his way.
Which brings us back to his outpouring of irritation in the media. Is Guardiola’s public frustration an expression of his private dissatisfaction with his team? It could even be a deliberate tactic; a manager constantly bawling out his players isn’t likely to be enormously constructive, so venting in the direction of the cameras and microphones might be a better way of going about things.
Jurgen Klopp provided a neat point of comparison. Whereas City won on Monday and Liverpool could only draw 2-2 with Sunderland, Klopp’s reaction was rather different. After two penalties denied his team three points, Klopp appeared disappointed but relatively upbeat, seemingly cursing the bad luck of conceding two spot kicks rather than railing against a cruel and unfair world.
And that’s not exactly a huge surprise, given there isn’t a base-level of frustration influencing his behaviour. Klopp has been at Anfield for more than a year and has managed to get his players performing in a manner that suits him, that resembles the football in his head. They are two points ahead of a City team that were favourites in most places to win the league. Their style is rapid, slick and most importantly of all successful. He certainly seems more satisfied with life than his opponent in Manchester.
These are two different characters, both intense but one more capable of lightness than the other. And yet the big difference at the moment seems to be that one is content with his team and the other is not.
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