Why Pep Guardiola's crisis management isn't helping his players - and what they really need from him now...writes IAN HERBERT
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Out there in the real world, beyond the holy church of football, there have been many brilliant, highly innovative individuals who have risen to the top of their fields, been cherished and rewarded for it, and not permitted one moment’s self-pity when the roof started caving in.
![[The way he is handling this crisis is not beneficial - is his melancholy really that motivational?]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/17/16/93239587-14202201-He_has_shared_in_the_complacency_that_the_club_has_shown_in_this-a-7_1734452052546.jpg)
John Sculley was such a successful executive at Apple that he played a part in Steve Jobs being ousted, yet put market share over innovation and saw things fall apart on his watch. Robert Nakasone built up Toys ‘R’ Us into a monolith but was complacent about digital advances. There were consequences.
![[You could argue he has been casting himself in the role of tragic hero as he and City struggle]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/17/16/92524103-14202201-Pep_Guardiola_was_left_with_a_number_of_cuts_and_marks_after_Man-a-10_1734452182331.jpg)
And that brings us to Pep Guardiola - an individual it has been such a privilege to observe at close quarters these past eight years, who is telling us, in the face of his current elemental difficulties, that he’s not been eating, sleeping and ‘is not good enough’ to solve Manchester City’s problems.
![[Any offer to resign would be purely theatre because Manchester City would not accept it]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/17/16/93239313-14202201-Any_offer_to_resign_would_be_purely_theatre_because_Manchester_C-a-9_1734452063371.jpg)
Is it heresy to suggest that the public air of melancholy he’s currently exuding - casting himself in the role of tragic hero and even scratching his face until it bleeds - is precious and rather needy? That it can’t be having the remotest positive motivational effect on his players?.
![[Guardiola would have had a say in Cole Palmer's exit, which now looks like a mistake]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/17/16/93239753-14202201-Guardiola_would_have_had_a_say_in_Cole_Palmer_s_exit_which_now_l-a-8_1734452054580.jpg)
It had been put to Guardiola by a BBC journalist on Friday that his recent admission of lost appetite and sleep will have ‘shocked’ some people, when he said, ‘I have a certain moral authority - with what happened in my career,’ he said. Yes, Guardiola indeed was on another level to almost any other football manager. His success is why he’s been able to carry off those little pieces of choreography we’ve seen on the pitch from him after a game over the years, mentoring opposition players and publicly talking his own through their errors, in a way that no other manager would probably dare.
![[He cannot give his players a psychological get-out by admitting 'I'm not good enough']](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/17/16/93239321-14202201-image-a-32_1734454477644.jpg)
