There is no getting away from it. Replacing Pep Guardiola will be no easy feat.
The 55-year-old has set the standard so high, both for fans of Manchester City and for those of us judging from the outside, that anything short of sustained brilliance could easily seem underwhelming. Mediocrity would feel like disaster.
City are set to opt for the familiarity of Enzo Maresca, who has previously been the club’s under-23 manager and worked as Guardiola’s assistant. Former director of football Txiki Begiristain felt as long as six years ago that the Italian could one day replace Guardiola. If he is right about that, then City are in good hands, but there is no doubt this is a major job.
On the pitch, City do seem to be heading in the right direction. That has not been a view shared by all during this campaign, with plenty of talk, as recently as the start of April, that they had barely emerged from last season’s lows, given the amount of times this season — and in 2026 in particular — they have been well placed to win matches but have come up short. Had City been able to nip that in the bud, they would surely be champions already. If they can beat Bournemouth on Tuesday, they may fancy winning it on Sunday anyway.
But Guardiola and those around him have been convinced things are well on track, that this new team are getting towards where they need to be, and that has been highlighted by their domestic cup double. It would be easier to believe that good things are on the horizon if Guardiola was going to stay for one more season, granted, but the squad looks strong.
Pep Guardiola led Manchester City to a third FA Cup on Saturday during a trophy-laden spell (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)
It needed to be rebuilt after the difficult 2024-25 season, which ended with a comfortable top-three finish and an FA Cup final appearance, but heavily damaged morale along the way heralded the end for modern legends Ederson, Kyle Walker, Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne.
From an “old squad”, as Guardiola called them at the time, City have brought in energy, power and flair over the past year or so. The club have moved away from signing typical ‘Guardiola players’ during this period, which makes sense considering he was never going to stay for much longer, but the changing face of the Premier League also demanded it.
With the rise of man-to-man marking, which City anticipated, the club opted for difference-makers who can win their duels, either by beating a man with skill and pace, or being defensively aggressive.
Those, like Rayan Cherki, Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Ait-Nouri, who can win duels in an attacking sense but leave a lot to be desired defensively, have had a year of Guardiola shouting at them about the importance of things like counter-pressing and second balls, and will surely be better for it.
This season has been all about that adaptation: not only are so many of the players new, they are less adept at taking on Guardiola’s ideas than the kind of players who were signed in the past. Things were always going to take time to gel and yet they have won two trophies in what surely has to be considered a transitional campaign. Their ceiling looks very high and while they have not always been great this season, if they do not win the title they will not be a million miles away, no matter how the last two games go.
It could be argued, therefore, that the best bet for the club would be for the Catalan to see out his contract and have one more year together with this new squad, to finish the job.
Instead, after a year or so of adapting to Guardiola, the process will start again with a new manager. There simply has not been that kind of uncertainty at City for 10 years. The good news is they do not need to add to the churn by buying a lot of players this summer; they are looking for a right-back but would only really need to replace those who leave. In some cases, they may have replaced outgoing players already, in the case of Marc Guehi and John Stones.
Bernardo Silva will leave when his contract expires, which will necessitate a very capable replacement. Again, there had been plenty of criticism levelled at Bernardo this season, but the Portuguese is basically the first name on the team sheet due to his understanding of Guardiola’s needs, his game intelligence, tenacity and fighting spirit. That will not be easy to replace.
Or will it? It is entirely possible that Maresca, no matter his similarities to Guardiola, would not need to lean on Bernardo in quite the same way. It is hard to imagine City moving too far away from Guardiola’s footballing ideas, but the Catalan remains so determined to do things his own way that he is trying to outfox the opposition’s man-to-man marking schemes by using Bernardo and Rodri to dictate the tempo of matches with lots of touches and passes, at a time when the league is becoming more direct.
Even those who would be considered Guardiola disciples may be willing to embrace a slightly more dynamic, physical approach than the Catalan generally wants, and that may signal a new direction for the team.
The idea that City could fully rip off the Guardiola bandage this summer is an interesting one: as well as Bernardo, Stones will move on as well, and if — it is a big if — Rodri were also to go, not only would Guardiola have left but the three current players who best deployed his football would join him.
Any move towards more transitional football would surely only benefit Erling Haaland, who has eight years left on his contract and will inevitably be the focal point of the City project for years to come. If the above players do leave, as well as Nathan Ake, whose deal is also expiring this summer, Haaland would suddenly be the fourth-longest-serving City player, behind Phil Foden, Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol, should he stay.
Changes in the backroom staff are inevitable, with fitness coach Lorenzo Buenaventura and goalkeeper coach Xabi Mancisidor, who actually predates Guardiola at City, also leaving next week. Maresca is likely to bring Danny Walker, his assistant at Leicester City and Chelsea, as his assistant. They had worked together at City, and Maresca was so impressed with Walker that he tried to take him to Parma when he got that job in 2021. City blocked it, though, as they valued Walker’s work in the academy.
Enzo Maresca and Pep Guardiola embrace during a Manchester City-Chelsea game in January 2025 (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Maresca promised Walker he would take him to his next job, but he ended up coming back to City as Guardiola’s assistant, meaning that avenue was closed for a little longer. They have reunited since, though, and Walker is another former City employee who impressed with his coaching qualities.
It is hard to paint Guardiola’s departure as a positive, given the success he has had at the club and the standards he has set. Replacing legendary figures like that has rarely been easy.
There is also the unknown factor of what will happen when a verdict is given in the Premier League’s case against the club for alleged breaches of financial regulations, charges which the club deny.
But City have worked hard for years to ensure they have the right people in place to make the right decisions, and director of football Hugo Viana, who replaced Begiristain last year, has already acted decisively in the transfer market — the January arrivals of Guehi and Antoine Semenyo were more signs that the club mean business.
When Guardiola arrived in 2016, City felt like they were drifting, with Manuel Pellegrini’s ageing squad running out of steam. It may be that nobody can replace Guardiola, given his status as one of the all-time greats, but there can be a degree of excitement about what the future holds.
At the very least, it will be utterly fascinating.
