To understand Manchester City, study Pep Guardiola’s mouth

Yes, in the manager’s spit we can begin to grasp his quest for perfection and the champions’ recent unravelling.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola.

Nothing fascinates in football quite like the inside of Pep Guardiola’s head. And nothing exemplifies the complexity of that head more than what gets chewed, chomped and honed in there until it’s eventually discharged like a bullet. Yes, I’m talking about the Pep spit. And it’s in the Pep spit that we can begin to understand his quest for perfection and its recent unravelling.

Spitting is regarded by many as uncouth. But Pep has elevated the common-or-garden gob into an art form. Sometimes, I find myself watching his great expectorations more closely than the actual football. For it’s in the frequency, globularity and texture of those magnificent balls of spit that he shows himself at his most naked. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, these supreme spheres are atoms of Guardiola. Put enough together in the right order and you eventually get the whole Pep.