Any longer a debate about Guardiola's place at top of the pantheon?
Manchester City's head coach Pep Guardiola, right, celebrates with Manchester City's Phil Foden at the end of the English Premier League win over West Ham. Pic: AP Photo/Dave Thompson.
Pep Guardiola’s brilliance arguably reached its zenith as he led Manchester City to a fourth consecutive Premier League title with the minimum of fuss at the Etihad yesterday.
Afterwards, glowing in the light of his latest success, Guardiola admitted he will be back next season - but possibly not beyond.
If he does leave, he will go with an achievement that no other manager has matched in the 124 seasons in which professional football has been played in England. Only Alex Ferguson - twice - had even led a team to three straight titles.
Guardiola made it 12 league titles in 15 seasons of management at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and in east Manchester.
Yes, he has always played with a loaded deck at the biggest spending or pre-eminent clubs in the three countries, but football management is a graveyard of high-profile managers squandering millions and falling to deliver.
And, of course, the many critics of City’s modus operandi, and the billions that have been funnelled into the Etihad from the Abu Dhabi state, will point to the 115 charges of alleged financial wrongdoings that still hang over the club. That may, one day, end with City’s achievements accompanied by a proverbial, or literal, asterisk.
But not Guardiola’s.
Consider that, in his 15 years of top-class management, it is only Jose Mourinho, with Real Madrid, Antonio Conte, with Chelsea, and Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp who can claim to have stopped him winning a domestic title.
By the time the dust had settled on this latest triumph, Guardiola was joint-second on the list of English title winners with six, alongside 19th-century Aston Villa boss George Ramsay and Bob Paisley of Liverpool.
Only Ferguson’s 13 championships lie ahead of Guardiola, who freely admits that total will never be caught, least of all by him.
But, for perspective, Guardiola is also fifth on the all-time list of Spanish title-winning managers, with three, and fifth on the German equivalent, having won the Bundesliga three times in as many years with Munich.
In total, yesterday saw Guardiola collect silverware for the 38th time in 15 seasons, an astonishing figure, even when compared to the 38 trophies Ferguson won in 27 years in charge across the city.
Of course, there is still time this season for Guardiola to overtake Ferguson, against Manchester United, no less, in next week’s FA Cup Final.
But, revered as Ferguson is, and always will be, in the annals of English football, how can there now be a lingering debate over where Guardiola sits in the list of the greatest to ever manage?
“I think everybody in football is in awe - I was going to say of his coaching - but I think it’s a bit more,” said David Moyes, who was the manager of Sunderland in Guardiola's first game in English football in 2016.
“I think what a really, really good man manager he is. He must be. To control the players he’s got, or he’s got some ‘hairdryer’ in the background that nobody talks about.
“Everybody is in awe about his football but his ability to manage everything; the players, you boys (media) … he’s done amazingly. His ability to manage is second to none.
“This guy has just gone and won it four years in a row so that myth about you can’t win it back-to-back, he’s blown it sky high.”
The personal toll of such excellence, of course, has been obvious in the strain Guardiola has often shown, his touchline tantrums and histrionics that have spoken, often, of a perfectionist on the edge.
Not surprisingly, given that he will turn 54 during next season, the City manager hints he may not remain beyond the last year of his deal.
"The reality is I am closer to leaving than staying,” he said. “We have talked with the club - my feeling is that I want to stay now. I will stay next season and during the season we will talk. But eight or nine years - we will see.
“Last season after the treble, I had the feeling, there’s nothing left! But I had a contract, I’m still enjoying it and we’re winning games, playing good, you start thinking about four in a row.
“Now, my feeling is, what’s next? Well, the FA Cup Final! But next season, right now, I don’t know exactly my motivation to do it.”
For Moyes, whose brilliant job in charge of West Ham has not been appreciated anywhere near as much as it should have been, his future in the game is quite simple.
"I'll wait until Pep goes before I come back!” he joked.
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