Why Pep Guardiola chose Bayern over Chelsea and Co. Could he be Arsene Wenger's eventual replacement at Arsenal? My thoughts on a potential manager merry go round. 

17/01/13

Well yesterday we saw the somewhat surprising news that Mr Josep Guardiola, the mastermind of 14 trophies in 4 record breaking years as manager of FC Barcelona, would be joining Bundesliga giants, Bayern Munchen. Considering only earlier this week we were under the impression that Pep would be heading for the Barclays Premier League this summer, potentially with Chelsea his destination, this was a shock. I have always maintained that Pep could well replace Arsene Wenger at Arsenal in the event of Le Prof stepping down. It may well be that he still replaces Arsene Wenger at Arsenal in a few years time, but one thing we know for sure is that he will be Bayern Munich manager for the next few seasons at least! So why did he make this move? What can we expect from his time in the German province of Bavaria? And could he really end up at Arsenal in the future?

Given the intense media speculation and gossip over the last few weeks it was quite obvious that the world's most in demand football manager's next move would become clear. And indeed it has. He has opted to turn down the cash of Chelsea in pursuit of more stability and class of the German giants. Let's make one thing clear, Bayern Munich is a massive club, without doubt one of the biggest in Europe. It has an unbelievable new stadium, a fantastic training facility and perhaps more importantly for someone as forward-thinking and revolutionary as Guardiola, it is a club with an asteem and prosperous academy system that has produced players such as Bastian Schweinsteiger, Phillip Lahm and Thomas Muller over the last decade or so. I am sure that this will have been a great draw to Munich for him especially when you consider that when he took over at the Nou Camp he moved on established internationally acclaimed players such as Deco and world player of the year winner Ronaldinho in exchange for young, talented, youth graduates such as Pedro and Sergio Busquetes and during his time at the club as a whole ushered in players such as Tello, Cuenca and Martin Montoya, into the first team from the club's incredible La Masia academy system.

I would also maintain what I have said before regarding Pep's next move, that he wouldn't want to risk his reputation and stature within the game, by going to work under such a trigger happy chairman as Roman Abromovich is, at Chelsea. When you consider that Roberto Di Matteo won the Champions and The FA cup and was sacked, Ancelloti  won the double one season and was sacked the next, a world cup winning coach, Scolari, was gone within 6 months as was the talented Villas-Boas who was in fact even guaranteed by the Russian, that he would be given plenty of time and support in ushering in a new philosophy in terms of playing style and youth development. But he too was dismissed after 6 months. So when you consider the great reputation that Guardiola has in the game, and rightly so given his success in Catalonia, why would he want to risk this by going to a club that could quite feasibly dismiss after only a few bad results, as happened with Di Matteo only this season. It is believed that Roman Abromovich took it upon himself to pull out all the proverbial stops, to encourage Guardiola to come to Stamford Bridge, and it's been speculated that he was offered as much as TWENTY million a year to take up the job. An astronomical amount of money. But to Guardiola's credit he has gone with his heart and his beliefs rather than his bank balance, and in my opinion this is very refreshing to see in the modern game.

As I said in the introduction to this article, I have held the view for a number of years that Pep Guardiola would be the perfect manager to replace Arsene Wenger. He is someone that has a very similar footballing philosophy to Mr Wenger, and also somebody that actually came to Arsenal a number of years ago, when working towards his coaching badges. Given this, I believe that one day he could be Arsenal manager, and as you may have seen in a previous article of mine, I had thought that if this season finishes with Arsenal in an unsatisfactory situation, Arsene could step down with Guardiola coming in, given that next season would have been the first season that he was available to take over a new club!

However of course this is not going to happen as he will be in Munich now, and of course I would
also prefer Arsene to stay at the club and be successful again, that would be an ideal scenario. But a few years down the line when Arsene Wenger's contract expires maybe this could be the time that Guardiola could be approached about taking over the reigns at Ashburton Grove! He has signed a 3 year contract at Bayern, and therefore this may not be possible. Regardless of this, what is clear is that he does have "Arsenal DNA" (to coin a popular phrase), and at some point down the line I am convinced he will be Arsenal manager. With Arsene's contract expiring at the end of next season (2014), it would appear that in order for this to happen, Arsene would have to sign on again for a few years in order to coincide with Pep's contract at Bayern.

Of course in all of this we mustn't forget the situation with others, such as Jurgen Klopp, who himself has done an incredible job at Borussia Dortmund, and would also be a very capable replacement for the legend that is, Arsene Wenger at the club. Furthermore, we also have to consider the future of the likes of Ferguson at Manchester United, Mancini at Manchester City and Mourinho at Madrid. These could also be on the move within the next few years, which would also open up a potential job in England, for Pep (presuming he would never take the Madrid job) to come to and manage in this country, as we assume would be of interest to him, somewhere down the line. Finally with Arsene Wenger and Ferguson in particular highly unlikely to ever manage another club, you could argue that there is currently a very small group of managers that could manage at these clubs, so it is no wonder that the likes of Mourinho, Klopp and Guardiola are in high demand!

Anyway, it is all shaped up to be a fascinating few years in the manager merry-go round!

@Mr_arsenal_blog