Guardiola - Has He Changed?

How City are Attacking at the start of 2025/26

‘Football is changing’, it’s the prevailing narrative as the 2025/26 season hits its stride. Is Pep Guardiola, considered the modern day high priest of the positional game that has revolutionised football across globe, being left behind? As the game trends towards a more direct, physical style, aided by a shift towards man to man pressing, how is Guardiola reacting? Strengthening his commitment to his principles to defeat the meta? Or moving with the meta to remain relevant? With the help of Twelve Football’s Earpiece, an AI powered scouting and analytics tool, let’s take a look at how City are attacking in the first four matches of the season and see what that can tell us.

First, it’s good to contextualise the data we’ll be studying. We’re only four games in, this is too small a sample size to draw conclusions. What we can do is point out interesting aspects and details to keep an eye on going forward.

Dominance

Guardiola’s teams have always been built to dominate matches, they sustain attacks and try to create opportunities by possessing the ball in the final third for extended periods. There are various metrics that reflect this style. Last season City took a league leading average of 37.3 touches in the penalty box per match. The start this season has seen that number drop to just 23.5, ranking sixth in league standings.

The percentage of final third possessions that result in a box entry has gone down slightly from 41% last season to 39% so far this season. Despite this small drop, we can conclude that City are having less ball in the final third and fewer touches in the opponents penalty area, effectively less dominance in the attacking third.

Field Tilt measures the percentage of possession that a team has in the final third compared to their opponents. Guardiola’s City find themselves top of this metric each season. Last season a 71.5% field tilt was way ahead of Arsenal who ranked second on 64%. After four matches City rank seventh on this metric with a 58.4% field tilt, a huge drop off.

Box entries to shot percentage shows the percentage of box entering possessions that lead to a shot per match. Last season City, as is often the case, were an outlier on this metric with just 42% of box entries leading to a shot. City are represented by the white dot below and each of the other dots represent Premier League teams. Crystal Palace sit at the top end of the scale with 55% of their box entries leading to a shot last season, Liverpool ranked third on 52% and Arsenal were closest to City ranking 19th on 45%, reflecting a similar play style.

So far this season, City are ranked 10th on this metric with 48% of box entries leading to a shot. Fewer box entries but more chance of a shot when they enter the box.

Put simply, City haven’t been anywhere near as dominant as we’ve seen in previous seasons in the opening matches this campaign. So, what’s happening?

Guallardyce

Are City moving towards a more direct style of play? Earpiece has some great metrics that can measure this from an offensive perspective. Shots from sustained attacks measures the percentage of shots that come from possessions with 8 or more passes in the attacking half. Shots from direct attacks measures the percentage of shots that come from possessions where at least 50% of the total ball movement is forward. Last season, as we’d expect, City were outliers on both metrics. 30% of shots came from sustained attacks, Arsenal ranked second on that metric with 23% whilst the rest of league ranged between 8% and 17%. Only 15% of City’s shots came from direct attacks, Arsenal and Brighton were next lowest ranked on this metric each on 19% and the rest of the league sat between 21% and 33%.

Four games into this season it is a very different picture being painted. Only 9% of City’s shots have been taken from sustained attacks, down from 30% last season, moving City’s ranking in this metric from first to fifteenth in the league. 26% of City’s shots have been taken from direct attacks, up from 15% last season, moving City’s ranking from twentieth to seventh.

With the caveat of this being a very small sample size, this does feel like a significant shift in style. City have gone from being clear outliers who take a high number of shots from sustained attacks and very few from direct attacks to one of the more direct teams in the league. This is part of the plan, as Guardiola explained recently.

What we’re seeing, in the numbers at least, is a more dramatic shift than those comments suggest. The ‘one thousand million passes’, one of Guardiola’s most regularly employed phrases, have been noticeably infrequent this season.

Is it working?

How does all this pull through to the quality of chances City are creating. City’s non-penalty xG / 90 was 1.74 last season, ranking fourth in the league. So far this season, that number is up slightly to 1.84, ranking second in the league.

Playing into that has been a significant increase in xG per shot from 0.12 last season to 0.16. That’s seen City move from fifteenth in this metric last season up to second.

City are less dominant in matches but the chances they are creating are of higher value and this has seen a slight uptick in np xG.

Who’s Benefitting

One feature of the change in style we’ve seen play out over the first four matches is more instances of City players going through one on one with the opponents goalkeeper. A more direct style sees the ball arrive quicker in the final third, allowing City to take advantage of the space behind opponents defences. One criticism of Guardiola’s use of Erling Haaland since City signed him in 2022 has been the under utilisation of his pace and strength in transition. Early signs are that may be changing. Haaland is thriving so far this season, he is currently posting an xG / 90 of 1.52. A small sample but still a ridiculous figure. Last season Haaland posted an xG / 90 of 0.72.

Tijjani Reijnders, signed this summer, excels in off-ball running and has also found himself in similar positions to Haaland. Reijnders feels like a signing made with a change in style in mind.

At the other end of the pitch Gianluigi Donnarumma is an outstanding shot stopper who we saw have a huge impact on knockout ties in PSG’s run to the Champions League. But it’s fair to say that he isn’t known for his on-ball prowess. His signing may be another sign that City are moving away from intricate build-up towards a more direct style.

As stated at the beginning of this piece it’s very early days and no conclusions can yet be drawn but all the signs are that Guardiola is moving with the meta as opposed to trying to best it with his tried and tested methods. We’ve never seen a Guardiola side start a season playing so direct and exerting so little dominance within matches.

I’ll be working with Twelve Football to bring you more insights this season, you can check out their work on all the usual socials.