Pundit Eamon Dunphy has praised Pep Guardiola’s work at Manchester City, despite having previous doubts about the Spaniard.
The 52-year-old is close to seeing his side secure their fifth Premier League title in six years, with a win over Chelsea on Sunday being enough to seal the trophy should Arsenal avoid losing to Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Following City’s recent 3-0 win over Everton, Guardiola has found himself on the end of some praise from one pundit, who initially didn’t seem convinced about the manager.
Dunphy makes big Guardiola U-turn
Speaking on a recent episode of The Stand, a podcast hosted by Dunphy, the presenter said this about the City boss.
He said: “I’ve never been Guardiola’s biggest fan, but that’s neither here nor there, except that I’ve changed my mind in a big way about his ability to take a player like Jack Grealish, as an example, and to improve him so much.
“And other players like John Stones, another player who was labouring for a while at City, dropped him, but come back, he’s found a role for him and there is no doubt, they’ve won five of the last six Premier Leagues and with all due respect to [Mikel] Arteta who has done a really great job, Arsenal are really a million miles behind them, regardless of what the league table says, which says they’re four points behind them and City have a game in hand.
“They really are in a league of their own in a way that [Alex] Ferguson’s teams were for a while and [Arsene] Wenger’s team also.”
In terms of seeing the Spaniard improve Grealish as Dunphy mentioned, the Englishman has already eclipsed the number of goal contributions in the league he racked up last season in this campaign.
Specifically, with three goals and three assist to his name in 26 league appearances last season, the 27-year-old has five goals and seven assists under his belt in 28 league outings this time around.
This alone makes it easy to see why Dunphy thinks the City manager deserves credit from this point of view.
