Pep Guardiola’s recent comments indicate that his Manchester City players’ biggest challenge in the upcoming season will be to improve on a personal level.
Guardiola said via HaytersTV: “In this season, it’s more the desire to, ‘Can I be a better player?’ It’s not the target, [to simply focus on winning] another Premier League. These guys may get changed, we’ve won already many times, six in seven years. Most of them have won six in seven years so their motivation cannot be for that, I think so, have to be, ‘We are not good as technical penalty takers, right?’ So, can you improve that?”
“‘Keepers are not incredible against penalty takers. Can you improve that? Rico [Lewis] is incredible in short spaces, long balls, he is not good. Can you improve that? When everyone can have the desire to get better and everyone, it’s not necessary to tell me, the willingness that every player has, it’s motivating enough to think, okay five, ten minutes, I can improve something on that, we will be there.”
While Arsenal’s sights will be set on finally conquering the mighty Manchester City to become Premier League champions, Pep Guardiola has set out a different challenge to his players.
With both clubs entering the season with a common goal but a different set of motivating factors, it will be intriguing to see whether Guardiola or Arteta has the last laugh.
Ferdinand reveals Premier League title prediction
Roy Keane backs Manchester City over Arsenal to get the job done once again.
However, Paul Scholes reckons Arsenal will end City’s run as the reigning champions of England.
The potential title race between the two standout teams in English football will continue to split opinion, especially as both clubs could still make signings that alter several fans and pundits’ view on their prospects this season.
But as things stand, Rio Ferdinand told TNT Sports that in his view, Arsenal will finally pip Manchester City to the league title.
“I think it’s hard to go against City because of how successful they’ve been over the last four seasons. They’ve set a new benchmark and now a new record of four in a row and that’ll be their aim, that’ll be the target and that’ll be the thing they’ll be aiming for, for sure in their dressing room.”
“But I just think Arsenal, maybe [Riccardo] Calafiori coming in on the left side, if he kind of comes in and shores that area up, I think he’s a fantastic player, played in a Bologna team under Thiago Motta that had a lot of rotations so he understands that type of football that [Mikel] Arteta wants to play.”
The pundit added: “And I think that was the area that you would say was a slight weakness in the team and I think he gives them more balance there and a bit of stability, more stable so I’d go maybe Arsenal to win and there’s got to be a hunger.”
Rio Ferdinand referenced his top four prediction for the 2024/2025 season, which saw Arsenal finishing first, Manchester City dropping down to second place, Liverpool remaining third and Manchester United returning to the top four.
“And there’s my top four there, I’m going to go with that. Man United improving on that eighth position of last season to top four but I’ve got a sneaky feeling about Arsenal.”
Guardiola has already found new motivation to give Man City an edge over Arsenal
As Pep Guardiola has laid out a challenge for his Manchester City players to focus on self-improvement rather than another league triumph, he has already answered the question of how to motivate his squad of world-class stalwarts ahead of another season.
Considering City have superior quality and winning experience over Arsenal, Guardiola’s newfound message could give his side a much-needed spring in their steps to win another league title.
For elite managers like the £378,846-a-week man, Sir Alex Ferguson during his time at Manchester United and Jose Mourinho during his spell at Chelsea, the challenge would be to find a way to push their players to attain more domestic glory in the following campaign.
With the mission already accomplished and that too multiple times, it must be an incredibly difficult task for such managers to come across solutions to convince their team to give it their all for another league title.
But it seems like Pep Guardiola has cracked the code and his message is perfectly executed by his City side, they could improve even further this season.
Mikel Arteta will have a similar challenge on his hands as after losing out in two consecutive fights for the title, he would wish to avoid a feeling of mental fatigue creeping into his Arsenal side.
Perhaps the signing of Riccardo Calafiori was made due to that amongst several other reasons.
But the same rationale in Calafiori’s favour can be put forth when discussing the Sky Blues’ acquisition of Savinho this summer.
