Pep Guardiola

 Pep Guardiola.

For much of the 90 minutes at Selhurst Park, Pep Guardiola seemed to be going through the whole gamut of emotions. Within roughly quarter of an hour against Crystal Palace, Manchester City's unashamedly demonstrative manager had told us everything we already knew about him. Guardiola was fuming, passionate, emotionally overcome at one point and staring at the sky in both anger and seething exasperation. Had something disastrous happened to him behind the scenes? Surely not.

Manchester City had gone a goal down to Crystal Palace and you'd have thought somebody had committed a heinous crime. For all the world Guardiola looked as though he'd lost everything on the horses or somebody had stolen his designer watch. But this was never the case so what was the matter? You see the point is that Pep Guardiola demands perfection from his teams and refuses to settle for below par, sub standard, inferior and certainly not the concession of early goals when clearly the opposition shouldn't have been that demanding. But this was a moment of temporary shock to Guardiola so this was hardly the most surprising reaction.

When Jean Phillipe Mateta opened the scoring for Palace with the match in its infancy, Guardiola thought his whole world had collapsed around him. He threw his hands into the air as if he'd been mortally offended by a personal joke about him, then fell forward on his seat almost resigned to his fate. The eyes were wild and staring, mortified, devastated, hurt, injured and utterly crestfallen. If somebody had given him a bottle of water at that point he'd have probably thrown it into the Sainsbury's supermarket next to Selhurst Park.

The fact of the matter is that Guardiola hates losing, despises the feeling you get when your team are either comprehensively beaten or narrowly defeated. He takes out his frustration on TV cameras or just grabs hold of one of his players and blames them quite openly. Comparisons with Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United are fairly obvious since Fergie resented everybody just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, simply within earshot of him. Then he would look at his watch and if the referee hadn't added on at least three years for injury time and United could still win a game, then you'd have been well advised to keep out of his way.

For the early part of City's 4-2 victory over a competent and well equipped Crystal Palace side, Guardiola was privately wrestling with his innermost feelings, tormented by minor anxieties and then going bananas when Palace threatened to take a firm foothold on the Premier League game. He turned to his assistant, embarked on an animated conversation with him and probably felt that City may have got out of bed on the wrong side. City looked heavy footed, ponderous in their build up play and not entirely sure of their bearings. Palace were stealing their thunder, possession of the ball and unsettling City.

When John Stones started dilly dallying with the ball for City in one of the visitors first attacks, Palace snatched the ball on the half way line, shuffled the ball forward quickly and Mateta latched onto a precise through ball. Sprinting forward on his own, Mateta just kept running before wrapping his foot around the ball and steering home a firmly driven shot past the City keeper which hit the post and rolled over the line for Palace's opening goal.

Years ago Brian Clough, one of football's greatest and most iconoclastic managers, would always hold a major inquest into either a Derby County or Nottingham Forest defeat. He would dart out of his manager's dug out with bunched fists, ferociously accusing fingers and threatening to fine his players if they didn't meet up to Clough's always exacting standards. Clough wanted blood, sweat and tears, never content with being runners up or gallant losers, striving desperately to win every conceivable football trophy available to his teams.

And now the bug has bitten Pep Guardiola. Yesterday Guardiola, to quote another cliche, was climbing the wall with outrage, disgust and outright dissatisfaction. Of course the Spaniard reminds you of a dashing matador in a feverish bull ring. The cape is flourished almost repeatedly and the bull just responds in a way that comes naturally. In the technical area allotted to him at the Etihad, Guardiola takes advantage of  acting out his full repertoire of amateur dramatics. He throws any object onto the ground when City fall behind, rolling his eyes with evident displeasure before snarling and gesturing disapprovingly as if football is just terribly unfair and City should never lose.

The greying stubble on his face is symptomatic of what Premier League title chases can do to a man. His chin was bristling with grave miscarriages of injustice as if pleading with the jury protestations of innocence. He jumps up quite suddenly when the referee consults with VAR at the very thought that a stonewall penalty had been denied to City. Then the arms and fingers look tortured with pain as he rages, gesticulates, at times taking the law into his hands. City have now won three consecutive Premier League titles but now the scenario is markedly different. Suddenly Liverpool and Arsenal have encroached on his precious territory and nobody should ever do that to Pep and his City. 

After yesterday's top three Premier League battles, City eventually cantered home to victory against Palace while at the Amex Stadium, Brighton were almost brushed away dismissively by another rampant Arsenal victory with only three goals but goals that could prove crucial come the end of the season. This time City have very real challenges to their supremacy and Mikel Arteta is another Spaniard in bullish mood. It may be that this one Premier League end of season run in has got something entirely unexpected up its sleeve. It's time to loosen those collars and be prepared for a breathless last day of the season.

But Pep Guardiola is still a fascinating study in human behaviour. When Kevin De Bruyne, his immensely gifted midfield attacking machine, let fly with a sensational rocket shot which levelled the game, Guardiola was seen to be blowing kisses at the Belgian virtuoso. Then De Bruyne left his indelible imprint on yesterday's proceedings, controlling the ball comfortably, passing the ball accurately and judiciously, waltzing past defenders with a fox trot gait about him and then cutting back onto his feet with attractive changes of pace or neat lay offs that left defenders dumbfounded. Guardiola knows exactly how to treat his golden treasures and yesterday was no exception to the rule.

For a while Erling Haaland, his Norwegian striker and wonderfully shrewd acquisition, looked to be struggling to assert himself and missed a whole host of excellent goal scoring chances. But even Haaland emerged from his recent goal drought with another goal to add to his remarkable collection. Now Guardiola had shaken off those moody outbursts and just accepted the status quo. At the end of the game Guardiola had recovered his poise and just felt so much better about football.

Meanwhile Mikel Arteta, Guardiola's former coach at Manchester City, was knuckling down to the task of maintaining Arsenal's Premier League title charge. Arteta just runs up and down touchlines when Arsenal score and just high fives his loyal and hardcore supporters in the crowd or appearing to do so. We are now into the hard last yards of the Premier League season when managers almost certainly earn their corn. They invariably complain when things don't go according to plan, blaming the goldfish for their team's downfall or just being deprived of goals of the obvious. Oh to be a Jurgen Klopp of Liverpool, Mikel Arteta and of course Pep Guardiola. To quote the always articulate Sir Alex Ferguson, football hey!