Is Pep Guardiola's Manchester City Built for Europe over the Premier League?

Pre-season certainly hasn’t seen the best of Manchester City. Nothing is gauged on how a club performs before the start of the season, but still, Pep Guardiola’s Premier League project feels very much like a work in progress. The pieces are there, but it could be weeks—maybe even months—before they are eventually pulled together.

City’s pre-season came to a close on Sunday with a disappointing 3-2 defeat to Arsenal in Gothenburg, Sweden, leaving the Etihad Stadium outfit without so much as a win under their new manager.

Saturday’s Premier League opener against Sunderland might come too early for Guardiola and his players, who are still getting to know each other. 

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In fact, it could be claimed that City are under-prepared for the new Premier League and Champions League campaign. Guardiola hasn’t nailed down a formation, with his players still unsure of their roles and responsibilities within the team. That will come, but for the time being they look to be a side without much direction. 

Having scraped a top-four place last season, Guardiola is under pressure to deliver Premier League success this term, but perhaps the man himself has his sights set on other things. Maybe the new City boss is focused not on this weekend’s league opener against Sunderland, but on a target some way off in the distance—the Champions League.

City have spent big this summer as Guardiola tailors the side to his specifications. The Abu Dhabi-owned club have splurged over £110 million on Ilkay Gundogan, Leroy Sane, Gabriel Jesus, Nolito, Marlos Moreno and Oleksandr Zinchenko, replenishing a squad that was already one of the best-stocked in the European game. 

Of those new arrivals at the club, however, only Gundogan and Nolito boast any top-level pedigree, with the former also a risk as he recovers from a serious injury from last season. The likes of Gabriel and Zinchenko are untested and aren’t exactly guaranteed to immediately deliver domestic glory.

For a manager who spends no more than three years at any one club, Guardiola’s signings seem to be surprisingly long term in their outlook. 

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On the face of things, it would appear Guardiola wants to deploy wingers and wide attackers, using the likes of Raheem Sterling and Nolito as tactical linchpins. That strategy, however, suggests the new City boss is more concerned with progress in Europe than in England.

Is Guardiola building a team for the Champions League rather than the Premier League?

Fundamentally, this City side don’t possess the technical ability to implement what Guardiola wants from his new team. Some will garner that with time, others won’t, and those others will ultimately be phased out. They are beginning to understand the positioning the Catalan coach wants from them, but the passing and movement of City’s players still leaves much to be desired.

"To know the players, you have to live with them,” Guardiola explained, per ESPN FC, providing an insight into how he is adapting his team to his stylings. "Eat with them, talk to them, train with them, get to know them.

"I am very, very pleased with the behaviour of all of our players. I think that, in terms of spirit and character, we will be a real team and that is what I want. We have to try to help each other and go forward and be aggressive without the ball. I like to see us fight.”

But for all City’s ideological struggles at the moment, their defensive worries must surely occupy the forefront of Guardiola’s thinking ahead of the Premier League’s opening weekend.

If there is an area where the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss is lacking the right mould of players for his system, it’s at the back.

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Against Arsenal on Sunday, Guardiola used Fernando as a central defender, relying on the Brazilian to link up the back line with the midfield. The Catalan coach demands quality in transition from his team, and at City he is lacking the players to make that work.

It goes some way to explain why they are reportedly so willing to spend big on Everton's John Stones, a centre-back who is comfortable with the ball at his feet, per Simon Stone of BBC Sport.

There was no sign of Nicolas Otamendi, Jason Denayer or Eliaquim Mangala in Sunday’s friendly defeat to Arsenal, with Guardiola unsure of his strongest defensive line. The City boss is so uncertain with regard to his defensive ranks that he started Aleksandar Kolarov as a centre-back in Sweden. It’s anyone’s guess who the manager could start at the back against Sunderland on Saturday.

City face a qualifier to make the Champions League group stage, with ties against Romania’s Steaua Bucharest looming, but Guardiola has time to get things right before his side come up against the continent’s great and good. That is where he will be judged, and that is where his summer signings are expected to make an impact.

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Quite simply, Guardiola has been appointed to establish his new club as a truly elite side in European competition.

Under Manuel Pellegrini they reached the Champions League semi-finals last season, but there remained the sense that City were only gatecrashing Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid’s party, like an enthusiastic raffle winner meeting their heroes. The club was out of place in such company.

Indeed, City exited rather meekly as a semi-finalist, failing to notch a single shot on goal as they were knocked out by eventual winners Real Madrid.

Guardiola is now charged with ensuring City raise their level both as a club and a team to match that of their continental counterparts. Therein that ambition is where the pressure weighs heaviest on the new manager's shoulders.

So perhaps initial judgement of what Guardiola is imposing at Manchester City should be tempered. He is addressing many of the shortcomings made by his predecessor Pellegrini while implementing his own ideology on a squad that isn’t necessarily built to absorb such learnings.

Whether he is constructing a team for the Premier League or the Champions League, it will most likely take time for his project to be fully unveiled.