Pep Guardiola Can Take Positives from Manchester City's Defeat to Bayern Munich

How much can one glean from a pre-season friendly?

History tells us they aren’t a good indicator of how a side will perform once a league season gets underway. In 2008, Tottenham Hotspur were flying in their warm-up matches, winning seven of eight outings, only to lose six of their first eight Premier League games when the season started.

Chelsea did the opposite in 2010, losing four of their five pre-season matches, before racing out of the blocks when the real stuff started, winning their first six league games.

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Importance of pre-season results - Spurs in 2008: WWDWWWWW, season stars: LLDLDLLL. Chelsea in 2010: WLLLL, season starts: WWWWW.

— James Maw (@JamesMawFFT) July 24, 2013"

Last summer, Manchester City lost their final pre-season match against VfB Stuttgart 4-2 and were hammered for much of the match. Defensive frailties were exposed, and their play looked disjointed. A week later, they battered West Bromwich Albion, the first of a five-game winning run that didn’t see their goal breached once.

Clearly, they often have little bearing on how a side will start a campaign proper, but they can still offer suggestions about how they might set up or what kind of style they may use.

Pep Guardiola’s first game in charge saw him return to former club Bayern Munich on Wednesday. City lost 1-0—Erdal Ozturk scoring a deflected winner in the 76th minute—but there were plenty of positives for the manager to take from the game.

He picked a young side. The average age of his starting XI was just 24. With Bacary Sagna, Eliaquim Mangala, Kevin De Bruyne, Jason Denayer, Nolito, David Silva, Joe Hart, Raheem Sterling Sergio Aguero and Nicolas Otamendi all missing because of their international exertions over the summer, it was a somewhat depleted squad. Guardiola used the opportunity to test his young players—and he will have been impressed with what he saw.

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Manchester City XI:

First half: Willy Caballero, Pablo Maffeo, Tosin Adarabioyo, Aleksandar Kolarov, Angelino, Fernando, Fernandinho, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Brandon Barker, Kelechi Iheanacho and Jesus Navas.

Second half: Angus Gunn, Maffeo, Adarabioyo, Kolarov, Angelino, Clichy, Fernando, Fernandinho, Fabian Delph, Wilfried Bony and Navas.

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They acquitted themselves superbly. Adarabioyo started at centre-back and looked composed throughout, with his passing perhaps the most impressive aspect of his game. The Mancunian has a big future, and he can be proud of his display. His positional awareness is superb, and there are real hopes he could be a big player for City in the future.

"It was a great honour for myself to start Pep's first game as coach here,” Adarabioyo said. "At first it could've been intimidating, because he is the world's best coach. But it's very special for everybody to work with him."

Zinchenko made his City debut and demonstrated his technical quality, and Iheanacho continued where he left off last season.

But it was full-backs Angelino and Maffeo who impressed the most, giving Guardiola plenty to think about before the season starts on August 13.

City have four senior full-backs. All are in their 30s and widely considered to be on the decline. It’s an area of City's squad that needs added pace, energy and running power. Guardiola has been tipped to enter the transfer market to solve the problem, but does he have answers in his squad already?

Matthias Schrader/Associated Press

Angelino’s career appeared to stall when he spent time on loan at sister club New York City last year. He looked good going forward, but when he was put under pressure going toward his own goal, he appeared vulnerable.

He wasn’t involved in the young City side that travelled to Chelsea to play in the FA Cup fifth round last season, instead being selected for the Elite Development Squad (EDS) for a game against Manchester United. It felt like a sign he was being phased out.

But he showed real quality in this game and impressed every time he picked up the ball. He started at left-back and played the second half further forward, showing creativity and quality in both positions. Guardiola likes youth on the flanks and players who are versatile. Angelino could hardly have done more to impress.

Maffeo, too, excelled. Not once did he look overawed by playing against the likes of Franck Ribery. He stood firm, looked tactically astute and mixed it physically with a top European side.

Matthias Schrader/Associated Press

It’s too soon to say whether they could come into the reckoning this season and allow Guardiola to sell a couple of his ageing defenders. Pablo Zabaleta looked short of pace and fitness last season, while Kolarov, who played at centre-back in the Allianz Arena, struggled for consistency. Those two would be the most obvious sacrifices in any shakeup.

But what Angelino and Maffeo have undoubtedly done is announce themselves to Guardiola and make it clear they are ready for further chances to impress in pre-season. It’s likely they’ll get them too.

“Pablo Maffeo and Angelino played amazing,” Guardiola said after the game. "I'm so happy. We spoke about many things, and we did them well.

“We’ve only been together for two weeks, and we are still learning. It is all still very new."

“It was a very special moment for me,” Angelino told City TV (via the club's official site). “I didn’t expect to play a full game, but I say thanks to Pep and all the staff, and hopefully I’ll get some more minutes on this tour.”

It's an encouraging start. Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said one of the reasons Guardiola was identified as City's top managerial target was because of his focus on youth, his ability to develop young talent and turn them into senior stars. 

"That's one of the reasons why Pep was so highly considered," he said in his postseason address to the fans back in June. "He has done that with Barcelona. He has done that with Bayern Munich.

"Even with the abundance of talent he had with both first teams, Pep always has a knack for talent, and he loves to find young players who have incredible talent. We have that at our club. We have incredible talent today. This is an organisation that has won the under-10 national championship, the under-13s under-15s and the under-18s this year.

"We are competitive with a lot of talent across all age levels, going all the way to EDS. And Pep, I think, will enjoy that and will find a lot of gems we are going to produce.

"I think that has always been the objective and the premise behind the investment we have made in the City Football Academy and the infrastructure we have in place today."

That process may have just begun. Results don't matter in pre-season, but tactics, fitness, trying new ideas and blooding young players definitely do. By those measures, this was a success.

Rob Pollard is Bleacher Report's lead Manchester City correspondent and follows the club from a Manchester base. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter @RobPollard_.