PL Hangover: Will Anyone Stop Man City as Guardiola’s Genius Clicks into Gear?

“When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.”

The epigraph from Jonathan Swift’s essay Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting predates Pep Guardiola’s gilded arrival in Manchester by over 300 years. It is a sentiment no less perspicacious for the passing of time. As football’s confederacy of dunces dwindles in number with each Manchester City victory, it is likely meetings could soon be held in a telephone box.

Confederacy chairman Jose Mourinho was unavailable for comment, away on damning business in Watford.

Although never a fully paid-up member myself, in the interest of full disclosure, one feels compelled to concede having greeted Guardiola’s defection to English football more with indifference than relish.

To the Guardiola zealot, it’s Pep’s way or the highway to a lost afternoon debating the merits of a high press or counter-press. By this point, the only thing I’d like to press is my temple between fingers and pray for silence. There are only so many times a disciple can present a laminated heat map to proclaim the genius of a false nine or fake full-back before it becomes boring to the point of nausea.

To admire his zeitgeist-forming work at Barcelona and Bayern Munich through a prism of ill-informed scepticism is no easy task but just about possible if you put your mind to it with full commitment. Apparently.

The notion it is probably easier to get your players to play like Lionel Messi or Philipp Lahm if they are actually Lionel Messi or Philipp Lahm has been one his detractors have clung to their bosom for years. It’s like an anti-hipster comfort blanket.

In Guardiola’s defence, getting Sergio Aguero to play like peak Sergio Aguero is one thing; coaxing a passable Ronald Koeman impersonation out of Aleksandar Kolarov, as he did on Saturday, is another thing altogether.

Manchester United boss Mourinho would settle for Paul Pogba giving a passable impersonation of a Paul Pogba impersonator.

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