Given the response to city's forthcoming appointment of Pep Guardiola, you'd think he was bringing the Premier League and Champions League trophies along with him as of right.
Of course, Guardiola is a top class coach and he may well be a huge success at city, but it's hardly guaranteed. He's enjoyed success at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, of course, in both cases inheriting a top class group of players that somebody else had bought or nurtured. I mean, I suspect even David Moyes might have a chance if he found himself in charge of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta.
The latter two of those three, by the way, were brought through by one Aloysius Van Gaal, as indeed were Bayern players like Muller. Van Gaal also made the crucial signing of Arjen Robben for the German club when many thought he was mad to take a punt on him. Both clubs, of course, also won their respective leagues under the Dutchman.
All of which I think is important to consider. If, and it's still an if as far as I'm concerned, we believe that Van Gaal will not now make the impact on the English game we'd hoped for, a question remains as to why we assume that
Guardiola will do better.
Of course he'll be inheriting again a very good group of players but he may also find himself in charge of a side that's just won a double or (God forbid) treble under a manager his club have just ditched. That brings a hell of a lot of pressure and remember it was the pressure that went with coaching Barcelona that led to Pep leaving Catalonia in the first place.
Sadly, it says more about Manchester United at the moment that so many of our fans are taking to social media to pronounce Guardiola a success even before it's happened. We're doing what we always said we'd never do: showing more interest in what's going on at that lot across the city. As John Terry found out in Moscow, what looks like greener grass from afar can turn out to be no more than a hastily applied daub of green paint.
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