Joe Hart Won't Be the Last to Be Ditched by Pep Guardiola at Manchester City

No matter how many times Joe Hart high-fived Willy Caballero before, during and after Manchester City’s Premier League opener on Saturday, the pain of being benched was plain to see.

As England’s No. 1 goalkeeper and the assumed first choice at the Etihad Stadium for the past five years, it surely hit the 29-year-old hard.

Although the dropping of Hart from City’s starting lineup had been anticipated ever since Pep Guardiola’s arrival at the club this summer, speculation that the new boss is looking for a replacement in the transfer market persists, with Barcelona’s Claudio Bravo the latest to be linked, per Rob Pollard of the Manchester Evening News.

Hart won’t be the last Manchester City player to be unceremoniously dumped by Guardiola, though. The Catalan has found a bloated squad at the Etihad Stadium and will now ruthlessly mould it in the shape of his own coaching ideology and character. More will be cut.

Indeed, Guardiola is a ruthless operator. He might be something of a footballing philosopher, primarily coaching his players through education rather than motivation, but he has little tolerance for sentiment or second chances. A poor first impression could be enough to push a player out the back door. 

At both Barcelona and Bayern Munich, Guardiola made a number of high-profile and controversial calls on players, regardless of how successful or established they were.

Take Samuel Eto’o, for instance. The Cameroonian was considered one of Europe’s best strikers, yet he only played a bit-part role in Guardiola’s first season in charge at the Camp Nou. He was sold the following summer, despite scoring in the 2009 Champions League final for the Catalans.

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Deco and Ronaldinho also experienced Guardiola’s merciless edge upon his appointment as Barcelona boss, with both players sent out on loan almost as soon as the new manager had his feet under the desk. The Brazil international had been crowned the best player in the world just three years previously. 

Guardiola demonstrated the same trait at Bayern Munich, too, showing little compassion as he shaped and forged his squad there. Mario Mandzukic—the striker who led the Bavarians to Champions League glory just weeks before Guardiola’s arrival—was ostracised and ultimately shipped off to Atletico Madrid. 

Xherdan Shaqiri suffered a similar fate under Guardiola at Bayern Munich, largely refused a chance to prove himself in the first team before being sold to Inter Milan. Bayern believed the Swiss winger was not intelligent enough to hold down a starting place for the Bundesliga giants, according to Bild (h/t ESPN FC).

And so Hart is just the latest in a string of high-profile players that Guardiola has exiled upon his arrival at a new club. There will be more at Manchester City before the close of the summer transfer window, with the 21-man squad selected for Tuesday’s Champions League qualifier against Steaua Bucharest giving an indication as to who is next to be ditched.

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Yaya Toure, for one, has not made the trip to Romania for the tie, with the Ivorian believed to be fully fit. “We travelled with two young guys and for the selection I prefer it to be the young guys than Yaya Toure,” Guardiola reasoned in a press conference, but regardless of the rationale, this doesn’t bode well for the midfielder's City future.

Samir Nasri, Wilfried Bony and Eliaquim Mangala were almost omitted from the squad, hinting that the trio might be scrambling to save their respective futures at the club as well. Hart has travelled to Romania for the game but is expected to be second choice to Caballero again, underlining how Guardiola views him.

Of course, all this cutting and changing is necessary if Manchester City are to become the team they so badly want to be. They have spent recklessly over the past five years, with as many failures in the transfer market as successes. Guardiola is now having to address that, and quickly. He must be ruthless. It’s the only way he stands any chance of achieving the objective that has been set for him.

Saturday’s Premier League opener against Sunderland demonstrated just how much work Guardiola has to do if he is to be a success in England. City only claimed three points by virtue of an own goal scored three minutes from full-time, with their performance well below the level their new manager will expect of them going forward. 

It’s perhaps only now that the true scale of the task Guardiola has undertaken is dawning on the man himself. His background suggests he will be an instant success in the Premier League, but City are not Barcelona or Bayern Munich. In the grand context of the sport, they are still a fledgling club with a mishmash of an incoherent and unbalanced team. 

In fact, there’s so much work to be done at the Etihad Stadium it might take Guardiola a number of transfer windows to forge the squad he wants at his new club.

Unlike at Barca and Bayern, there is no platform for him to build upon. There is no common thread for him to pull upon. He must establish his own team and an identity for that team from scratch. 

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An expensively assembled squad has been left for Guardiola at City, but it is unsuitable for his methods and practices as a football coach.

Plenty has been spent this summer in an attempt to address that, with Ilkay Gundogan, John Stones, Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Leroy Sane, Marlos Moreno and Nolito all making the switch to the Etihad Stadium. But will that be enough to change the entire character of the side?

All this is of little comfort to Hart or any of the other players tagged for cull this summer, but Guardiola views such ruthless decisions as necessary to the task he has at hand.

City wanted a manager who would turn them into the club they have aimed to be for the best part of the last decade. Now they have one, and they must embrace the way he does it.