Pep Guardiola's changes to get Manchester City back on track

BarcelonaOn the verge of closing out his most complicated season at Manchester City and while immersed in the Club World Cup, Pep Guardiola's coaching staff is introducing new faces. Aside from a notable outlay of 340 million euros in player signings before the end of the 2024-25 campaign, three people from thestaff They've already left, and in their place have come three replacements. They are Pep Lijnders, James French, and Kolo Touré, who come to replace Juanma Lillo, Íñigo Domínguez, and Carlos Vicens.

Let's take it step by step. Regarding the departures from Pep Guardiola's coaching staff, the departures are differentiated. On the one hand, Lillo and Domínguez were finishing their contracts as Guardiola's assistants, and the club has decided not to renew them. The reason is the English club's desire to renew and refresh the dressing room also from the management side and not just in terms of the players, where established names like Kevin De Bruyne—who has already left and signed for Napoli—or Jack Grealish will no longer wear the shirt. skyblue. . Another factor was the fact that neither Llillo nor Domínguez are fluent in English, which made dialogue with the players difficult. However, in the case of Carlos Vicens, the departure was different. City's intention was to renew his contract, but the Catalan coach had "a very good offer" – according to ARA from Manchester – to become the new manager of Braga, the fourth-placed team in the Portuguese League last season and a Europa League team.

To replace these three changes, Lijnders, French, and Touré have joined the British club on June 10 and all three are fluent in English. The former will take over from Lillo as assistant manager. Lijnders comes to City with extensive experience in elite football, both in the Premier League and other European leagues. The 42-year-old Dutchman began his coaching career in 2002 in the youth ranks of PSV Eindhoven, before taking on a similar role at FC Porto in Portugal. His move to the club has been widely discussed in England as he had been working at Liverpool for over a decade, since 2014. He started under Brendan Rodgers, and later under Jürgen Klopp after his arrival at Anfield in 2015. After a brief spell as manager of NEC Nijmegen in 2018, Lijnders returned to Liverpool that summer, where he remained until last season. grid together with Klopp. He later took over as coach of RB Salzburg, where he spent six months in charge of the Austrian team.

Lijnders isn't the only one to have swapped red for sky blue. French also joins City from Liverpool and takes on a key role, such as setting up set pieces, a task that until now had fallen to Vicens. French began his career in coaching roles at Swansea and the Football Association of Wales before joining Liverpool's coaching staff in 2012. Since then, he has spent more than a decade at Anfield working as a first-team opposition analyst. Meanwhile, Kolo Touré, brother of former Barça and City player Yaya Touré, is also part of the first-team squad after serving as assistant coach of the U-18 academy team last season. citizanTouré returned to City—he had previously been a player between 2009 and 2013—after a year and a half without coaching, following an unfortunate spell at Wigan in his first solo coaching experience. "Until not long ago, he was an active player, and that helps the group of players; he's a respected figure," they point out from Manchester.

Notable departures in the Manchester City squad

In terms of the squad, City have spent up to 340 million euros since January: Marmoush (75 million), Nico González (60), Khusanov (37) and Vitor Reis (37) arrived last winter and Reijnders (55), Ait Nouri (37) and Cherki (36) – more as tutors of the youngsters in the dressing room than to get playing time – have been signed just before the Club World Cup. A match in which Jack Grealish is missing. Signed four seasons ago for more than 100 million euros from Aston Villa, Guardiola believes he is one of the big fish in the dressing room who must leave the team. In fact, he only started in seven games during the last Premier League and was left out of the FA Cup final, in which he did not play a single minute.