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Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola was in his element on Saturday evening as he spoke to reporters after the West Ham win.
Pep Guardiola has done it again. A week that could have created uncertainty for his players and Manchester City more generally has ended with the longest-serving manager in the Premier League looking a force to be reckoned with again.
Guardiola has shown every side of himself in his ten years at the Etihad, and his responses to the suggestion this week that he could leave City at the end of the season with Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca high on the shortlist to replace him was relatively calm and considered. He said he wanted to stay, he defined what would make him feel like leaving, yet also recognised that the club have to make contingency plans because he never chisels his future into stone.
Minutes after his team had racked up a 3-0 win over West Ham to leave them two points off the top of the table on Christmas Day after seven straight victories, Guardiola turned his next press conference into a firecracker. City are not good enough to win the league unless they listen to him, their request for an extra day to rest was knocked back because of the performance, and the manager will be turning up at the training ground on the 25th to weigh his players, ready to leave out anyone who hasn't been uber-professional.
It was all said with a smile and a glint that just hinted at the exacting standards Guardiola sets. Standards that last season they were in no position to meet as the manager looked troubled with his once-winning machine suddenly malfunctioning three times a week.
The fact that Guardiola feels confident to warn his players tells you that he is happier that they can take it. Much like his desire not to give Rayan Cherki 'too many compliments' the Blues boss wants his whole squad grounded so they do not throw anything away in their attempt to win back their Premier League crown.
More than that though, this was a show of strength from Guardiola himself. Here he is, back to his confident self who knows that he is the biggest advantage any team can have in a title race. This serial league winner knows what it takes over a gruelling 38-game league campaign and he intends on taking City over the line again - if they follow him.
If Guardiola's bosses can be delighted that the man they stuck faith with at his lowest point last season looks to be back to his best, it also strikes at just how difficult it will be to replace him. Before he was suddenly linked with the City job, Maresca had bumbled his way into unwanted headlines with strange criticisms in his press conferences that weren't clarified and there is pressure on a team who are already ten points off the top of the league.
It was another week where City can feel lucky to have Guardiola, and hopeful that they can put off executing any succession plan for, as the manager says, 'as long as possible'.
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