With how successful Manchester City have been in recent years in particular, they have laid out the blueprint for success for the rest to follow.
Despite other top clubs also being financially stable, having a huge global appeal and several outstanding players at their disposal, they seem to be unable to walk in City’s footsteps.
However, keeping rivalries aside, several of England’s top clubs would aspire to be as dominant as the Sky Blues are.
Especially since Pep Guardiola’s appointment in 2016, which seems to have transformed not just Manchester City but the landscape of English football.
The success Guardiola has brought has meant his assistants and former players have been handed top jobs in the game as well.
Whether that is a direct consequence of their experience working with the £378,846-a-week man remains unknown.
For instance, despite only managing Qatari side Al-Sadd, Xavi Hernandez was brought in to take charge of Barcelona in 2021 before he was replaced by Hansi Flick this summer.
Similarly, Vincent Kompany was given the honour of managing one of Belgium’s biggest clubs in RSC Anderlecht during his time as a player.
Kompany impressed at Anderlecht before leading Burnley to Premier League promotion, suffering relegation and then being appointed as Bayern Munich’s replacement for Thomas Tuchel.
Scholes claims Enzo Maresca was hired by Chelsea due to Guardiola influence
Arsenal perhaps took a bold, yet smart decision by entrusting Mikel Arteta to take over the reins as he has helped them finally return to becoming title challengers once again.
Another manager who has now been appointed by a massive Premier League club is Enzo Maresca at Chelsea, who, much like Arteta used to be Pep Guardiola’s assistant coach.
However, Paul Scholes claimed on The Overlap that he feels the Blues hired Maresca solely due to him having worked with Guardiola.
Scholes said: “I was amazed, more than anything. To come from Leicester, he’s been manager at Parma, I think, had a complete, complete disaster.”
“Obviously got the Leicester job, he’s probably getting his jobs on the back of working with Pep [Guardiola] clearly.”
“As a lot of people do.”
“At United [after working with Sir Alex Ferguson], Brian Kidd, Steve McLaren got jobs, Mike Phelan, there’s a list, Carlos Queiroz went to Real Madrid through United so there’s a list of them.”
Chelsea might have made the move to implement Pep Guardiola’s style
While only Chelsea are aware whether working with Pep Guardiola influenced them to appoint Enzo Maresca, as Paul Scholes claims, perhaps one of the reasons why they did so is due to playing a similar brand of football.
Nowadays, more than ever, it seems like teams at every level implement Guardiola’s style; with even underdogs at Euro 2024 such as Albania, for instance prioritising possession-based football.
Top clubs, especially wish to play a style of football where they control games and manage to entertain their supporters.
Pep Guardiola certainly does at Manchester City and his former assistant, in Mikel Arteta also has managed to at Arsenal; the two managers of the two best sides in the Premier League.
As a result, it could be a possibility that Maresca’s ultimate draw to Chelsea was this very aspect that he could bring to Stamford Bridge as his Leicester City side were also a team that dominated games through keeping the ball.
