‘Going to happen’- Man City given stark reminder of Pep Guardiola replacement issue
Manchester City took on Burnley just over a year ago when Pep Guardiola made some strong claims about Vincent Kompany
Pep Guardiola took Vincent Kompany’s advice on Jeremy Doku
Pep Guardiola took Vincent Kompany’s advice on Jeremy Doku
It feels a lot longer than a year ago that Vincent Kompany was being touted as a future Manchester City option.
Kompany taking charge at the Etihad would be a dream for the club and for supporters after everything he has done – he does have a statue outside the East Stand, after all – but this wasn’t just an idle wish. Pep Guardiola said on more than one occasion that Kompany becoming City boss ‘is going to happen’.
“He will be back sooner or later,” he said. “His destiny to be manager of City is already written in the stars. It’s going to happen. I don’t know when, but it’s going to happen.”
That came at a time when Kompany was steering Burnley to an extraordinary return to the Premier League in his first season in charge as they blitzed the Championship with brilliant football. Not only that, they made it all the way to the FA Cup quarter-finals where they earned a tie at the Etihad.
As daft as it sounds given they lost 6-0, Burnley were really, really good. City were in terrific form on their way to the Treble yet Burnley troubled them more in the opening half-hour of the game than Champions League side RB Leipzig had days earlier. Despite the Erling Haaland-inspired thumping, Kompany left the Etihad with even more credit in the bank that day.
12 months on, that stock is considerably lower with Burnley on course for relegation back to the Championship with just 17 points from 29 games. They looked underprepared on the opening night of the season against City, and it hasn’t really got any better for them.
The fact that Kompany appears relatively safe in his job should speak to the difficult circumstances in which he is working. The former City captain has had to mould together an inexperienced team in a new division where clubs they are competing with are racking up tens or hundreds of millions of pounds in losses in order to have as good a team as possible.
City will be conscious of that, and will not be writing him off just because Burnley have struggled this season. Kompany has given Guardiola good advice in both match preparations and before City signed Jeremy Doku, and those insights go a long way.
However, if you were putting together a list of potential Guardiola successors this March the noise for Kompany would be a lot quieter. Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi has been thrust into the spotlight since, Ange Postecoglou is building on an impressive track record that includes titles won in the City Football Group, while Xabi Alonso is one of Guardiola’s former star pupils.
With another year left on his contract and the club ever hopeful he will sign an extension, there is plenty of time for more change before City are faced with having to replace Guardiola. If Kompany is to fulfil his ‘destiny’, he will hope to have done enough to earn a bigger part of the conversation when Guardiola decides to call it a day.
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