What if Guardiola could manage this United team? Given the talent on offer, there’s no doubt the Spaniard could get the side achieving great things as he has done at City.
Jose Mourinho has privately expressed his frustrations that in the modern Manchester rivalry, he has to compete with the financial resources bestowed by a state. Manchester City have spent so much on players over the years, he says, that as United manager there is only so much he can do to match them.
And yet if the two managers were in charge of each other’s teams on Sunday afternoon, or even for the whole Premier League season, can anyone dispute who would have come out on top? Mourinho could try his best with City’s players, although would be unlikely to be able to get them to their current level, heading for the Premier League’s first ever 100-point season.
But what if Pep Guardiola could manage this United team? They did want him, after all, to replace Louis van Gaal but knew by late 2015 that he was going to leave Bayern Munich for City. Since then, of course, Mourinho has signed the players for his own style of football, rather than Guardiola’s. But even then an imaginary managerial change would do wonders for United’s performances and results with their current team in place. Adventure, imagination and initiative would be back at United, whoever the opponent, wherever the game was played.
The 5-3-2 United have been playing would go and would be replaced by Guardiola’s favoured 4-3-3, which he has returned to with City this year with great success. Guardiola always wants a mobile incisive front line and if he did not feel like Romelu Lukaku was precise enough to play for him it would not matter: Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Henrikh Mkhitaryan would be a perfect Guardiola attack. They would have the energy to put opposition defences under pressure, the speed to run in behind and the brains to combine instinctively in the box.
Yes, Mkhitaryan has not exactly shone since joining United from Borussia Dortmund for £30mlast summer. But then he is precisely the type of quick incisive technical player who Guardiola improves, not just through individual instruction but in providing the team structure for creative individuals to flourish. Just look at how much Raheem Sterling has improved at City this year.