Manchester City vs Monchengladbach: Into the great unknown - Pep Guardiola prepares for his greatest European test

'You tell me why English clubs fail in the Champions League,' says Guardiola, as he launches tough group stage campaign against Borussia Monchengladbach

Pep Guardiola has already enjoyed European success with Barcelona (Getty)

From Pep Guardiola’s perspective, it was impeccably good timing that details of the 2015/16 Champions League technical report should have emerged a few hours before he sat down to discuss how he plans to tackle the 2016/17 edition, with the belief that staking a concurrent claim for English and continental supremacy is perfectly achievable. "Why not?" as he put it.

The report revealed how Joe Hart failed to find a team-mate with 37 per cent of his passes in last season’s semi-final second leg defeat at Real Madrid, compared with Barcelona’s Marc-André ter Stegen, who hit only three wayward passes from a total of 67. This rather went to show why Guardiola is happy to see Hart at Torino.

Assessment of £40m Eliaquim Mangala’s distribution in Madrid centred on how 23 of his 30 passes were sent to his own goalkeeper and defenders – and that’s why he is now on loan at Valencia. Guardiola said that he was sure his friend Txiki Begiristain, City’s technical director, had made “good and bad decisions… more good than bad” and this was certainly in the latter of those categories.

It will be a new Manchester City we see from Tuesday night against Borussia Monchengladbach – a City commanding the vast majority of possession under the tutelage of a manager whose Bayern Munich side saw more of the ball than anyone else in the competition last season. And a side which, as we saw at Old Trafford on Saturday, possesses energy and purpose. It was the torpor of City which made these European occasions devoid of excitement and anticipation under Manuel Pellegrini and contributed to that morgue-like lack of atmosphere at City’s stadium.

Absent will be the agent of so much of City’s undoing in Europe – Yaya Toure, who was neither a shield nor a spear in the midfield as the Pellegrini years rolled on and Europe revealed his diminishing powers. Pellegrini prevaricated over how to deploy him on these occasions and as he dithered City’s midfield often found itself overrun. What we see already from Guardiola is absolute clarity about who will do what and when. The 45-year-old might look like the soul of Iberian bohemia at times but he is regimental. Just ask Kelechi Iheanacho, who was given holy hell by Guardiola for a wrong action at Old Trafford on Saturday, just before United scored.

The most vivid sense of the micro-management that Guardiola brings and expects on these big occasions emerges in Andres Iniesta’s wonderful new autobiography, The Artist. “The central defenders coming out to play, or the full-backs… Pulling the pivot further back to begin moves,” Iniesta describes it in an interview with Sid Lowe, who collaborated on the book. “In sessions, instead of the two interiores coming back to receive, he pushed us further forward for the next wave, supporting players higher, offering passing options. You could only come so far; you can’t go past this line,” he added, signalling the limits with his hand.

Pep Guardiola understands the scale of the challenge ahead of him (Getty)

It makes your head ache just thinking about what the players had to think about. This is what Begiristain and City chief executive Ferran Soriano know he brings and why they are so convinced that he can take the team “to next level of tactical sophistication and intensity,” as Soriano has put it, by making waves in Europe.

The difference between City and the Barcelona side Guardiola managed, of course, was the strength all over the field. Certainly in Kevin de Bruyne, David Silva, Sergio Aguero and perhaps the restored Raheem Sterling there are players in Guardiola’s new number who can maintain his seven successive Champions League semi-finals. But recall to mind his Bayern side’s 5-1 evisceration of Arsenal at the Allianz Arena in last season’s group stage and you see how Guardiola had iridescent quality all over the pitch. Kingsley Coman, a French 19-year-old on loan from Juventus, was sensational that night. Full back David Alaba just the same. With Barcelona, there was the Inieista, Xavi, Lionel Messi nexus, of course.

There was no sense in the way Guardiola discussed the Monchengladbach game that he will employ pragmatism and look to defend space. Risks come attached to that steadfast belief in his philosophy. City’s vulnerability resides in the spaces behind, that their five attacking players might leave. The defenders might be more capable of passing the ball than Mangala, but that defence looks beatable.

Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola watch on during the Manchester derby (Getty)

There is very little time for acclimatisation either, of course. This group re-acquaints Guardiola with Barcelona a month or so from now, with the febrile surrounds of Celtic Park before then. That adds to very little margin for error against the German side.

Guardiola’s assessment of where City are was a mass of contradictions. In virtually the same breath he asked “Why not?” was the observation that the side are not playing well enough to win the Premier League. “I would like to tell this brilliant audience and our fans the way we are first in the Premier League, the way we have played until now, it will be not enough to win the Premier League so you have to improve…”

How might they need to improve? It would take all week to say, he replied. Why don’t English teams prosper? “I would like to know that. Maybe you are more experienced in England than me…"

The truth is that there are now uncertainties in this competition of a kind which he has never experienced. He does not know how close his side are to the best. He does not know how his defence will fare. Nor how it will be when he has moved on from the statistical irrelevance of an early autumn Old Trafford victory and is trudging through the dog days of winter. One of Guardiola’s mannerisms in the early weeks is to point his ear towards the speaker when he is asked an English question, straining to grasp its entirety. He is still finding out.

It was a Spanish journalist who asked him who the best player in the tournament was and it was on that topic that he provided clarity. “Messi,” he answered without hesitation, in Catalan. “There is no player better than him. Messi.” He did not wear a smile as he spoke.