Manchester City assistant manager, Pep Lijnders, recently provided an intriguing insight into the future plans of head coach Pep Guardiola. According to Lijnders, Guardiola remains as 'hungry' and 'ambitious' as ever for success at the club.
The comments come at a time when Manchester City is undergoing significant evolution. Several new faces are integrating alongside established leaders following a period of notable change. This evolution was evident in Saturday’s emphatic FA Cup victory over Exeter, which showcased the depth and adaptability within the current group.
Guardiola watched from the stands due to a touchline suspension while Lijnders oversaw a performance that mixed senior authority with youthful energy. This mindset has been echoed in recent weeks across Guardiola’s own press conferences where he discussed various challenges such as relentless fixture schedule, injury issues in defence or importance of difficult matches in shaping squad progress.
Importance of winning first trophy
Speaking after City’s 10-1 demolition of League One side Exeter, Lijnders emphasized on winning the first trophy with this largely new group of players following a year that brought plenty of change. He stressed on his colleague's continued determination to be successful despite his remarkable achievements at Etihad Stadium stating “The ambitious ones don’t have limits and he has passion and ambition now.”
Manchester City assistant manager, Pep Lijnders, said:
“You have players who won everything; Rodri, Bernardo [Silva], Ruben [Dias], all these guys. Gigio [Donnarumma] last year won the big one [UEFA Champions League]. It always helps when you reach finals, get into difficult games,”
“We want to play as many games as possible, give us the most difficult because with this, we can improve. It’d be unbelievable to go to Wembley. I always feel, especially in the beginning of the season, it’s like a trampoline. Everybody’s playing, involved, everybody knows there’s a next game. Now it’s the [League Cup] semi-final and it’s one leg away, then we have to put ourselves in a good position to take them [Newcastle] here at home.
“There’s a long time between so that’s really strange, by the way. And then we want to go to Wembley because we all know that stadium, the history, the history of this club inside the League Cup as well, so we want to do that again. For players it’s always like this to gain confidence, it’s the big games, it’s going away to Real Madrid and win there, it’s going to Newcastle and try to get a good result. We will try that.”
This statement underlines that Guardiola's future planning at Manchester City is rooted in his competitive fire that has defined his tenure so far. Despite an era marked by unprecedented success, there seems to be no sense of satisfaction or complacency within Manchester City under Pep Guardiola's leadership. Instead, there exists only a desire to continue setting new benchmarks and pushing the squad towards further evolution.
