It was a viral tweet from five years ago that famously asked this question. A video clip showed Rochdale, then in League One, scoring a stunning, game-changing team goal consisting of 16 passes that started with the team playing calmly from defense.
'Right, so f*** ROCHDALE scored this goal and you're telling me Pep Guardiola has no influence on English football?' read the accompanying caption.
The post quickly became an internet meme because, as it became increasingly clear, yes, he had clearly done that. Never has that been more evident than in this season's Premier League.
In 2015/16, the season before Guardiola took charge at the Etihad, the percentage of Premier League goal kicks that ended in the defensive third of the pitch was 17 percent. Just under one in six. The rest? Hoof, get on the field.
This season, nine seasons after Guardiola's arrival, that number stands at 61 percent. Almost two out of three. More than half don't even leave the penalty area.
In the season before Guardiola emerged, goalkeepers completed 51 percent of their passes. Now they complete 71 percent of it.
These figures are rising season on season as more and more clubs move to a build-from-the-back style of play – and not always, as we will discover, to their advantage.
So yes, Guardiola and his keep-ball philosophy have influenced English football more than anyone else in the last decade.
Just look at two of the new Premier League managers this season, Russell Martin at Southampton and Enzo Maresca at Chelsea. Eighty percent of all Saints and Chelsea goal kicks do not come from their own area. Only Ange Postecoglou's Tottenham averages a shorter distance.
Both are Guardiola disciples. Both find that their principles yield different rewards.
Maresca worked with Guardiola at City. At Leicester, Mads Hermansen played more passes than any goalkeeper in the history of the Championship. Foxes fans often found the football boring, but he led them back to the Premier League at the first time they asked and is now flying with Chelsea.
Yet there are still grumblings. Fans of English clubs struggle to embrace tippy-tappy when they have been brought up on a diet of blood and thunder. During the first half of their draw against Arsenal, a misplaced pass from goalkeeper Robert Sanchez was greeted with loud groans.
“I'm the man who asks Robert to do that,” Maresca said in his goalkeeper's defense. 'The moment he stops doing that, he won't play. Sometimes you make mistakes, but that won't change the way we're going to play.”
Martin has a quote from Guardiola from after he won the 2011 Champions League framed on the wall of his office. “If we win, the game model seems right and there will be no doubts,” it said.
“But remember, we won't always win. Then doubts arise. That is the moment when we will have to rely on the model more than ever, because the temptation to abandon it will be very great.'
And boy, the doubts are coming. Only City have made more passes than Saints this season, but no side has lost possession more times in their own third division than Martin's men (75) and no side has made more mistakes leading to both shots on target (15 ) as goals conceded (15). 6).
Southampton are bottom of the Premier League, but Martin refuses to give in. The question for him, and for all developing parties who play that way, is whether that is faith or folly. According to data giant Opta, only five shots have been scored within 30 seconds of a team taking a short goal kick this season. However, twenty shots came in that way.
It shows that playing out from the back entails a risk. If you get it wrong you will be punished in a division where the sides are now so good at pushing. There are twice as many goals from high turnover, where a team loses the ball within 40 yards of their own goal, per game this season than there were ten seasons ago.
Brentford have conceded six goals in such situations. Saints, four. Three each for Brighton, Ipswich and Wolves.
Burnley tried to hold on to their possession last season and were relegated. Brighton are doing it now, and doing it well, but they had to be practical for a while under Chris Hughton when they first went up. It was part of a process.
And while these developing clubs have been playing catch-up on possession under exciting young managers, other top sides are deviating or being more open to playing differently when necessary – even Guardiola.
Arsenal, with a manager in Mikel Arteta who learned his trade under Guardiola at City, go long with more than two-thirds of their goal kicks.
A quarter of City's goal kicks also go long. In the previous two seasons that was more than a third.
In their title decider against Arsenal in 2023, Guardiola knew he had to beat Arteta's high pressing, so he played 4-4-2 and went long to the big man up front.
You see, Pep knows that even the most idealistic managers sometimes have to trade principles for points.
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