Gary Neville has said that a lot of clubs across the country have been trying to copy one thing Manchester City do.
After retiring from his playing career in 2011, the former Manchester United full-back has been commentating on Premier League games for over a decade.
Now though, the 49-year-old has shared some details on what he’s seen from City over recent years and what impact Pep Guardiola has had on other clubs in English football since his arrival at the Etihad Stadium.
Neville says Man City ‘genius’ has had a big impact
Speaking in a recent edition of The Overlap where he was speaking to Bastian Schweinsteiger, Neville had this to say about the impact that Guardiola has had on other English clubs.
He said: “If you watch Pep’s Manchester City play against the lower teams, it’s not very exciting, because they keep the ball for 75% of the time.
“It’s too easy for them. It’s brilliant, you have to marvel at the genius of how he’s done it, but then in League Two or the Championship now, you see centre-backs on the six-yard box and the goalkeeper passing it to the centre-backs.
“It’s been a positive impact, but everyone is trying to copy it and now Pep is playing with four centre-backs in his defence and [Erling] Haaland so he has changed to a more aggressive style, and everyone is still trying to copy the old style.”
Pep Guardiola has been one of the most innovative managers ever
The Spaniard made a name for himself as a forward-thinking and innovative head coach during his first senior managerial job in charge of Barcelona.
By making the goalkeeper and defenders play the ball out from the back and instilling a tiki-taka style, this ended up playing a significant part in Barcelona’s success during the period of Guardiola’s management.
With Neville now saying how much he has noticed other teams across the four leagues in English football deploying a similar style of play usually seen in Guardiola’s teams, this highlights just how much of an impact the 53-year-old has had on football in general.