It was expected that Guardiola would have to change his ways but instead he has changed the English game

Pep Guardiola likes to ask questions. He fires them off, rat-a-tat-tat, even when he is 99 per cent sure that he knows the answer. In his years at Bayern Munich he would pick the brains of Xabi Alonso and others who had played or coached in England. “Could a team play out from the back like this in the Premier League?” “Would the players accept it?” “Would their opponents allow them?” He would listen to their answers, but he was sure he knew — 99 per cent sure, at least.

He was warned that the Premier League is different. Alonso no doubt told him the story of his bruising introduction to English football with Liverpool at a windswept Reebok Stadium on a late-summer day in