Six Premier Leagues. One Champions League. Twenty trophies in total. Pep Guardiola is reportedly walking away from Manchester City at the end of the season, and Enzo Maresca — fresh from a turbulent stint at Chelsea — is the name lined up to replace him. The era is over.
And it genuinely was an era. From the moment Guardiola arrived at the Etihad, he didn't just win — he reshaped what winning in English football looked like. He reinvented his own style mid-cycle, treating the first half of seasons like a live laboratory, discarding systems that worked and searching for something better. Most managers would coast on a proven formula. Guardiola got bored of it.
The Ferguson question
Is he the greatest Premier League manager of all time? The honest answer is: it's genuinely close, and the fact it's close is remarkable.
Sir Alex Ferguson's case is built on 26 years and a near-total transformation of Manchester United. But he coached in a less tactically complex league — Wenger, Mourinho, and Ancelotti were the serious threats, and the rest of the division largely made up the numbers. Guardiola has operated in a far more competitive environment. Top-four football now means navigating elite coaches every single week.
There's a counter-argument, and it's a fair one: Guardiola was handed essentially unlimited resources. Every transfer request, granted. Every squad demand, met. No other Premier League manager — including Ferguson — has operated with that runway. If Jurgen Klopp had been backed at that level from day one at Liverpool, this conversation might look very different. City's dominance is Guardiola's achievement, but it didn't happen in a vacuum.
Still. Twenty trophies. You work with what you're given, and he made it count.
Klopp, Mourinho, and the rivalries that defined the era
The Guardiola-Klopp duels — roughly 2017 to 2024 — were the standard by which Premier League football will be measured for years. Both sides attacked. Both sides adapted. It was chess played at sprinting pace, and it produced some of the best football this league has ever seen. The Mourinho battles at Real Madrid were better theatre, darker and more tactical, but for pure quality of football, Klopp-Pep had no rival.
Klopp left Liverpool in 2024. Guardiola follows him out now. Two of the sport's greatest coaches, gone within twelve months of each other. The Premier League's competitive odds just shifted in ways bookmakers will be recalculating all summer.
As for what comes next for Guardiola: a break seems obvious, maybe inevitable. He's done Spain, Germany, and England. Italy has some appeal. The Spain national job — targeting Euro 2028 or the 2030 World Cup — makes sense on paper. A Barcelona reunion further down the line has never fully gone away as a possibility.
Maresca inherits a squad losing De Bruyne, with Bernardo Silva and Rodri both reportedly eyeing exits. It's not a rebuild exactly, but it's not a handover of a clean machine either. Whether he has the tactical authority to keep City at the top of the table — and at short odds come August — is the central question of the next three seasons in English football.
- Guardiola won 20 trophies at Manchester City, including 6 Premier League titles and the Champions League
- Enzo Maresca, former Chelsea manager, is reported as his successor
- Klopp left Liverpool in 2024; Guardiola reportedly departs City weeks later
- Key squad departures include Kevin De Bruyne, with Bernardo Silva and Rodri also linked with exits
Guardiola's departure doesn't diminish what he built. It just makes it easier to see the edges of it.
