Man City are Premier League title contenders again: How Pep Guardiola has reshaped his team | Football News

Manchester City are back in Premier League title contention, a notion inconceivable this time last year in the peak of a catastrophic collapse. Their title defence was in tatters by December. So, what’s changed?

New year, new City

While 2024 was undoubtedly not Man City’s finest moment – the backend at least – they have turned a corner in 2025, winning more games (19) than any Premier League side. They average more points per game (2.07) than both Arsenal and Liverpool, and have scored infinitely more goals (63).

Of course, titles are not won by calendar year but it’s important to note consistency has been steadily building since recovering from one of the worst declines ever witnessed by a reigning champion. It was like they hit self-destruct. Sentiment shared in no small part by current champions Liverpool in this very moment.

Pep Guardiola needed time to recover. He bore visible scars from his side’s implosion and repeatedly told reporters in press rooms: “I’m not good enough”. Some of the rhetoric was somewhat hollow given what had been achieved in the years before, but seemed to uncover a missing part: “The club needed those loses,” Pep has since reconciled.

Complacency has been eradicated, replaced by a cold and calculated strategy to bulldoze a way back to the top. So far it seems to be working.

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Persuasive Pep

If last year was a season of survival, this year has been designed as the campaign of comeback. Specific style changes can be read further down the page. What was first important to reestablish was the cavalier attitude that has come to define Pep teams all over Europe.

Few opposition sides actually feared City in their darkest hour. For the first time ever, few managers, as it turned out, fretted over facing Pep. They were beaten by Bournemouth, Brighton and Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham in consecutive weeks. Mikel Arteta’s previously tentative Arsenal stuck five past them in a show of audacity in February.

But slowly, Pep’s authoritative side is resurfacing, joking in press conferences about being a “genius”. His managerial record can bare the brunt of such a brazen display. A far cry from being “not good enough”.

Gary Neville alluded to it on his podcast recently: “Arsenal are the better team, but Man City are the one club with the one manager I wouldn’t want on my shoulder going down the back straight”.

City’s home form illustrates how intimidating they can be as a collective force. No side has won more points (15) than them on home turf this season, albeit Arsenal have played a game fewer. No side has scored more goals (16). The ability to suffocate teams with an air of invincibility on arrival is undoubtedly as useful as any tactical upper cut. Pep appears to once again have both aids in his corner.

Dangerous Doku

Jeremy Doku epitomises a more tactically flexible Manchester City – slightly more chaotic – but perhaps as dangerous as ever.

The winger’s match-winning performance against Liverpool will live long in the memory. Despite playing down the quality of his goal when speaking to reporters afterwards – “I have scored better…” – it exemplified the brilliance of a player on top of his game.

Five days on from Liverpool beating Real Madrid, and Conor Bradley pocketing Vinicius Jr, Doku turned the young full-back inside out. Doku’s form is, in part, the product of a tactical structure Guardiola has been honing over recent weeks. Last season City struggled to create, especially against teams that sat in a low block and countered quickly.

This year, Pep has often opted to play a much narrower midfield, specifically against teams who like to try to press aggressively. One of the keys to the success of that system has been the position of Doku. “I’m a genius, tactics my friend,” Pep said, when asked to comment on Doku’s emergence as a de facto central midfielder.

Rotations are key. Wingers move inside, opening up lanes for overlapping runners, and the pace of the passing or directness of Doku’s 1v1 ability does the rest. City rely on his take-ons to carry them up the middle of the pitch rather than always trying to go around the outside. It gets him closer to Erling Haaland and opens up space to exploit as defenders flock towards him.

Sky Sports News recently asked Pep who his best dribblers were, and he predictably chose Doku. When Wales played Belgium last month, manager Craig Bellamy said Doku could dribble past you in a phone box. When those quotes were put to the player himself, he responded with a knowing smile. He’s relishing the responsibility to play such a key role in a winning team.

‘Phil is back!’

Phil Foden is beginning to look more like Phil Foden after draining himself of any spark last season.

He was mentally and physically exhausted after starting every game for England in their run to the final of Euro 2024, a tournament where he carried so much individual expectation off the back of a career-best club campaign. Foden had delivered 19 Premier League goals, just eight fewer than Haaland, and stepped up when his boyhood club needed him most.

This was the year the precocious academy talent had seemingly realised his infinite potential, and yet he struggled badly for England at the Euros, failing to provide a single goal or assist in his seven tournament starts.

How much that experience was responsible for the baron months that followed, only Foden himself knows. He suffered with illness and injury as City flopped their title defence, and cited the need to get his “head mentally right”. A break has done him the world of good.

A goal in the Manchester derby was the first step forward on the road to redemption, before two strikes against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League earlier this month prompted Guardiola to declare: “Phil is back!”

“When Phil is happy and full of joy you don’t have to say much, he’s a special player,” Guardiola added. City need him firing to stay the course.

Hungry Haaland

Is it just to include Haaland in a piece about discernible differences when the Norwegian has never stopped scoring goals for Man City? He netted 22 times in the Premier League last term, hardly a deficient total.

But this brand of Haaland has more bite. He’s scored 14 league goals already, almost twice as many as the next highest scorer (Igor Thiago, eight), and has 19 in all competitions. Of course we have seen this strike rate before, notably in 2022/23 when he scored 20 by early October, but the design is developing.

Of 44 open-play shots this season, 26 have come without any prior touch, with eight of his 14 goals off a first-time finish. It’s this explosive yet refined technique that sets him apart. The ball arrives to him quicker and he’s so instinctive he’s difficult to track, much less stop. He’s scored three goals via fast breaks, also a league high (level with in-demand Antoine Semenyo). Man City have never been known to champion this direct, more vertical style.

Haaland has dream co-conspirators, too, able to offer final-third entries by a variety of means. Doku leads the Premier League rankings for ball carries ending in the opposition’s box (72), and chances created following a carry (11) – he’s joint-top of the big chance creation charts too (five). Foden is fourth on the list of top chance creators.

And don’t forget the timeless influence of Bernardo Silva, examined brilliantly here by The Debrief.

Title contenders after all?

Man City have the highest duel success rate in the Premier League this season. Guardiola reiterated the importance of that to establish control in games after beating Liverpool so comprehensively. They also rank top for distance covered per 90 – without the talismanic Rodri running midfield.

The Spaniard’s continued absence is less of a problem this season given the additions of Nico Gonzalez and Tijjani Reijnders, as well as the remodel of Bernardo’s role. Playing central midfielders at full-back – often Matheus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly – has added another layer of robustness.

Is all this enough to stage a sustained title push, then? No doubt they are in the mix. City face Newcastle, Leeds, Fulham, Sunderland and Crystal Palace in their next five matches. Given they are currently the closest challengers to Arsenal – four points adrift – it is conceivable that the gap will close across that run.

Scars from last season’s sensational collapse are fading. It doesn’t make Manchester City infallible, that has already been proven, but it puts them in the conversation – something that cannot be said of this time last year.

Watch Newcastle vs Man City live on Sky Sports Main Event on Saturday; kick-off 5.30pm