Manchester City’s Spanish manager Pep Guardiola reacts in his seat during the English Premier League football match between Arsenal and Manchester City at the Emirates Stadium in London on September 21, 2025. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE. No use with unauthorized audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or ‘live’ services. Online in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No video emulation. Social media in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No use in betting publications, games or single club/league/player publications. / (Photo by GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images)
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It wasn’t that Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side chose to defend their lead.
There have been many less-publicised occasions when digging was a necessary demand.
Nor was it the active role that the coach played in that shift.
The Catalan has often removed an offensive player for someone to tighten up the team.
However, there are scarce examples of Guardiola totally shutting up shop and choosing to defend a game as he did against Arsenal.
The statistics told the story: City had just a 33.2 % share of possession, the lowest from a Guardiola team in his top-flight management career.
Ultimately, it was not a tactic that worked; City’s 0-1 lead was relinquished to an inch-perfect Gabriel Martinelli lob in the third minute of stoppage time.
When Guardiola was informed that his team’s possession was the lowest he’d ever managed, he joked: “I cannot live in this country with another record, so I’m so proud of that.
“I give a lot of credit to Arsenal for what they have done. Okay, one time in 10 years is not bad, right?
“I have to prove myself against another strategy. Now I am a transition team.
“I suffer. I don’t like it. I want the ball away, away — I want it to be close to [David] Raya’s goal, not Gigi [Donnarumma’s].”
“In general, who controlled the game was Arsenal. It was not us. And that’s why when this happened, 1-1? I take it.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 21: Erling Haaland of Mancheater City celebrates scoring his sides first goal during the Premier League match between Arsenal and Manchester City at Emirates Stadium on September 21, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
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Guardiola was complimentary of the team’s performance, praising the mentality he felt it displayed.
“Our resilience was fantastic; otherwise, we couldn’t survive,” he added.
“Last season we lost 5-1; today we were close. It’s by far one of the best teams in Europe.
“I would prefer to play another way, but when we play a lot of games in 10 years [as City manager], the teams defend deep, deep, deep and take a result of fantastic performance, mindset, strategy.
“Sometimes it happens. You have to defend, honestly. It’s because the opponent is better. When you have to accept it, you have to survive in that way. And we did it.”
For him, it demonstrated a level of fight that he believed was lacking in the previous campaign, where City suddenly and dramatically slumped.
He continued: “I have said many times about the [focus being on] the body language, how we celebrate, how we are communicating, how we are making an effort for each other.
“We lost it a lot last season. And I said this season I don’t give a ‘bleep’ about the results. I wanna see the spirit back in the training sessions.”
Pundits, many of whom have criticised Guardiola’s lack of flexibility, were left a little dumbstruck with what they’d witnessed.
“It was not a game I was expecting,” said Sky Sports’ Gary Neville, “I thought that it might be hard to create moments.
“But how it played out [with] Pep resort[ed] to a way of playing that I’ve never seen before, but I really liked it.
“I really enjoyed the fact that he went to 5-4-1. He decided that he was just going to manage the game without the ball, and play on the counter-attack with only one forward on the pitch in the end. They looked so comfortable.”
“This is a completely different Manchester City; it’s a complete turnaround.”
This is not an overblown reaction. Guardiola might have joked about “becoming a transition team,” but statistics demonstrate this is actually the case.
So far this season, Manchester City has had 52% of the ball in league games, which sounds reasonable except for the fact that in the previous eight seasons, they averaged possession of 60% or over.
Interestingly, one of the men sacrificed for that focus on possession, Joe Hart, offered an astute analysis of what has happened: it’s not so much a case of Guardiola changing but the league.
“Nowadays, the Premier League has caught up with them, in terms of the strength of Arsenal and Liverpool. Even the games against Newcastle and Chelsea are going to be tight,” he told BBC Radio Five Live’s Monday Night Club.
“Guardiola realises that there will be moments now where they have to close the front and back door. Erling Haaland even dropped to play deep after 65 minutes and was defending with his team.
“I think Guardiola is looking at different ways of doing it and bringing in Gianluigi Donnarumma was a statement to say they are not playing with 11 outfield players anymore.”
It’s one of the most fascinating shifts in Premier League history, the biggest proponent of offensive possession soccer shifting to a transitional approach.
Clearly, this will not be adopted for every game, but the signs are that it is enabling the team’s biggest star, Erling Haaland, to really thrive with the space he gets on the break.
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