Souness genuinely thinks an English coach would have done as well as Pep Guardiola at Man City

Graeme Souness genuinely thinks an English coach would have done just as well as Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.

Guardiola has won six Premier League titles, including the last four on the bounce, the Champions League, two FA Cups and four League Cups in his eight seasons at the Etihad having been hugely successful at both Barcelona and Bayern Munich before coming to the Premier League.

Souness rejects the idea that foreign coach are better than homegrown coaches and reckons an Englishman – he doesn’t say who – would have achieved similar extraordinary feats if they had been given the chance to manage City instead of Guardiola.

“I would dispute the idea that foreign coaches are better than British coaches,” he said. “Foreign managers are getting better jobs at the moment, but that doesn’t mean they’re better coaches.

“Pep Guardiola inherited a Manchester City side that had won Premier League titles with their two previous managers. Arne Slot took charge at Liverpool and took over what was more or less the finished article. I’m not buying the idea that foreign coaches do anything different to British coaches.

“Players are the most important thing at any football club. You look at Guardiola; he had the best group of players in La Liga when he was at Barcelona, he had the best group of players in Germany at Bayern Munich, and now he has the best group of players in the Premier League at City.

“Give an English coach the Liverpool, City, or Arsenal squad and they’d do just as well. The City team Guardiola inherited was full of top players, and he’s bought in better players as well.”

Again, we would love to know which English coach Souness reckons could walk into any of those three jobs and “do just as well”.

MORE MAN CITY COVERAGE ON F365
👉 Man City FFP: PL rivals to demand £100m+ ‘compensation’ with guilty verdict amid ‘lawyer advice’
👉 Danny Murphy hits out at TNT Sports over Noel Gallagher as Oasis star told to save ‘his little anecdotes’
👉 Some Man City board members ‘want’ Guardiola exit as next destination ‘proposal’ emerges

Fortunately for Souness he may shortly be able to witness just how well an English coach would do at City, though probably not as they would surely look abroad again for Guardiola’s replacement owing to the lack of homegrown options.

There were some reports last month that Guardiola had made a decision to stay on as manager at the Etihad Stadium but now reports in Spain have claimed that some of the Man City hierarchy are starting to feel it’s time for a change.

A 4-1 loss to Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League on Tuesday night means it is the first time since April 2018 that Man City have lost three matches in a row in all competitions.

It is understood that Guardiola has ran into a ‘unexpected problem’ with some on the Man City board starting ‘to question whether Pep is the right person to continue leading the project, or if the time has come to look for a new approach to avoid possible complacency that could harm the team in the long term’.

And ‘internally, some members of the board have expressed the idea of ​​a renewal, not only on the bench, but also in a squad that has been playing for years under the same tactical and philosophical direction’.

It is claimed that ‘sources close to him say that he is evaluating all options’ while Man City could ‘decide not to renew Guardiola’s contract, names of possible replacements have already begun to circulate in Manchester.’