{"id":689482,"date":"2026-05-23T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/689482\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T13:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:00:16","slug":"pep-guardiola-manchester-city-exit-through-eyes-of-rival-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/689482\/","title":{"rendered":"Pep Guardiola: Manchester City exit through eyes of rival fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool<\/a> fan Josh Sexton can be found on outlets including The Anfield Wrap, external<\/a><\/p>\n

It comes to something when your long-time nemesis says it is time to move on and you actually feel a little bit sad about it.<\/p>\n

It feels like a chapter of English football is truly closing.<\/p>\n

I actually grew to quite like Guardiola – a feeling made easier by Liverpool<\/a> refusing to be any competition to his team this season.<\/p>\n

Between his compassionate politics and his increasingly funny news conferences, the man who became the bane of our existence has started to cut a much more likeable figure.<\/p>\n

The respect element was always there.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are caveats to City’s success, but there are very few doubts about Guardiola’s greatness as a manager.<\/p>\n

After Jurgen Klopp left Anfield in 2024, it seemed only natural that the man he went toe to toe with for so many years would move on fairly soon after.<\/p>\n

The truth is, the standards those two managers set would warp our perception of what a normal title-winning points total looks like.<\/p>\n

Arsenal<\/a> have pipped Guardiola to the Premier League this season, but they have done so with a maximum of 85 points – a climbdown from the days of Liverpool<\/a> and City pushing each other to 90-plus totals.<\/p>\n

Liverpool<\/a> have fallen away this season, but Guardiola moving on means the barrier to entry for a title race is likely to not be as high.<\/p>\n

Therefore, Liverpool<\/a> supporters should be reassured that a return to the top is not too far away, especially with such a talented group of players.<\/p>\n

We might not see those 2018-2022 levels again for a little while, though, and for that we will always – at least partly – have Guardiola to thank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool fan Josh Sexton can be found on outlets including The Anfield Wrap, external It comes to something…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-689482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}