Pep Guardiola is a better manager than Sir Alex Ferguson: Fourth consecutive Premier League title gives Man City boss the edge over legendary Scot

Just before Pep Guardiola took charge of Manchester City for the first time in August 2016, Sir Alex Ferguson sat down with Sky Sports to give his thoughts on how the Catalan would fare in England. Ferguson knew all too well how good a coach Guardiola was as his Barcelona side had destroyed United in two Champions League finals, but he still had some cautionary words for the man, who he mistakenly called ‘Pepe’.

“Pepe without question has got a fantastic work ethic about him, he’s got a great coaching ability, there’s no doubt about that, but it’ll be difficult to replicate what he did at Barcelona,” Ferguson warned. “Man City have done a real coup in getting him because he’s an outstanding coach, but Pepe won’t find it as easy. English football is not easy, every foreign coach who comes to England will tell you that.

“He will be a success but I don’t think he’ll ever replicate what he did at Barcelona. Because Pep’s gone there it’s not a guarantee they can win the league without question, that’s the beauty of our league.”

Ferguson was right about Guardiola’s debut season in England, when City finished third and failed to win any trophies. But since then he has been proven emphatically wrong, as Guardiola has made English football look rather easy indeed.

And after winning his sixth Premier League title in seven years and a historic fourth consecutive crown, it’s time to ask whether Guardiola is a better coach than Ferguson himself. The truth might make uncomfortable reading for the legendary Scot and Manchester United fans.

Eyeing history

After equalling Ferguson’s greatest ever feat by winning the treble with City last year, some suggested that Guardiola had achieved everything with the club. But a coach as driven as the Catalan is not easily satisfied and he soon set his eyes on his next target: becoming the first team in English football history to win four consecutive league titles.

It was a feat Ferguson attempted twice with United, in the 2001-02 and 2009-10 seasons, while Huddersfield Town, Liverpool and Arsenal had also tried but failed. According to a former City player with strong ties to the current dressing room, Guardiola had set winning that elusive fourth title as the primary target for the season and the whole squad got on board with it.

It was ranked above retaining the Champions League and FA Cup, precisely because it was something no team had done before. Guardiola remained wedded to the target even when City’s title bid began to falter following the three consecutive draws against Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham, in which his side shipped a total of eight goals.

Unbeaten since December

Before the visit to Aston Villa in December, Guardiola took the unorthodox move of predicting his side would go on to win the league. “My feeling today is we will win the Premier League. People don’t believe it after three draws but we are going to do it again,” he said. “If you ask me today, if we play at the level of Liverpool or Tottenham, we’ll do it again, knowing it’s not easy.

“No team has done it [four in a row] yet. That’s the difficulty, but if you ask me today how we’re feeling, we’ll do it again. If you ask me today. If we play at the level of Liverpool or Tottenham we’ll do it again, knowing it’s not easy.”

His pledge was slightly ill-timed as City ended up losing at Villa Park, but it proved to be their last defeat of the season in all competitions, discounting the penalty shootout loss to Real Madrid after drawing 4-4 on aggregate. Since falling 1-0 to Unai Emery’s side, City have dropped points in just four of their 23 games.

No twists

If one thing has defined Guardiola’s City, it is their ability to go on winning streaks when it matters most. They won this title by winning all nine matches after their 0-0 draw with Arsenal in late March. The previous season they won 12 matches in a row to successfully chase down the Gunners.

In the 2021-22 season, they won 14 out of 15 games between November and mid-February while remaining unbeaten. After then losing at home to Tottenham, they won nine out of the subsequent 12 games while not losing once. In the 2020-21 season, they dropped points in seven of their opening 13 games, but responded by winning their next 15.

The 2019-20 season may have been a write-off, when City lost nine matches and surrendered the title to a rampant Liverpool, but the previous campaign, when Liverpool had snuck ahead of them in the title race in February, City won their final 14 games to finish on 98 points and lift the title. And in the 2017-18 campaign they won 18 matches in a row, making the title race a foregone conclusion in December. As Gary Neville put it earlier this season: “City don’t give you twists.”

Throwing titles away

And that is where Guardiola differs from Ferguson. Once a title is in the Catalan’s grasp, he almost never lets it go. The former United manager, despite his incredible haul of 13 titles in 21 seasons, presided over his share of bottle jobs.

Worst of all was in his penultimate season in 2011-12, when United raced eight points clear of City in April with six games to go, but then lost at Wigan Athletic, drew 4-4 at home to Everton while conceding two late goals in the space of three minutes and then lost 1-0 at the Etihad Stadium after playing for a draw.

City may have won the title by the skin of their teeth thanks to Sergio Aguero’s 94th-minute strike against QPR, but United only had themselves to blame. Ferguson later admitted: “You have to say we did throw the league away. Hands up, we all know we’re responsible for throwing the league away, but nonetheless, we lost it and you have to deal with that.”

Back in the 1997-98 season, meanwhile, United held a 13-point lead over Arsenal on Christmas Day, but dropped points in nine of their last 18 games as the relentless Gunners reeled them in. United also messed up the 1994-95 title on the last day of the season, drawing 1-1 at West Ham, meaning Blackburn won the league even though they lost at Liverpool. United also narrowly missed out on the title in 2009-10 to Chelsea, losing to Carlo Ancelotti’s side at home and failing to beat Blackburn in the run-in.

Better rate of trophies

Ferguson still has a greater amount of silverware than Guardiola, amassing 48 top-flight trophies across his 34-year career in the dugouts of Aberdeen and Manchester United. The Catalan, however, has already notched 38 gongs in 15 seasons.

He could soon make that 39 trophies if City beat United in the FA Cup final, which would be an average of 2.6 honours per season, compared to Ferguson’s rate of 1.4. At his current rate, Guardiola would surpass the Glaswegian for overall trophies by 2028.

Guardiola has also picked up more prestigious silverware than Ferguson. In 15 seasons, he has 12 league titles from his time in La Liga, the Bundesliga and Premier League, which is just one short of the 13 Ferguson won with United in 27 campaigns. Guardiola also has more Champions Leagues than the Scot, reaching the semi-finals on 10 occasions compared to Ferguson’s seven.

Guardiola could also never be accused of under-estimating the so-called lesser competitions. City won four consecutive League Cups between 2018 and 2021, as many as United won across Ferguson’s entire tenure. Guardiola has also won the treble twice, in his first season with Barcelona and last year with City. And he led City to a clean sweep of four domestic trophies in 2019, something Ferguson was never able to achieve.

More points, more goals

Guardiola also trumps Ferguson in terms of points earned. In his second campaign with City in 2017-18, they became the first and only team to earn 100 points in a English top-flight season, while also posting the biggest winning margin of 19 points. His City then went on to earn 98 points in 2018-19 and 93 in the 2021-22.

So that’s three occasions when his side earned more than Ferguson’s highest points total in a 38-game season, which came when United finished with 91 in the 1999-2000 season. City won 32 games in two separate seasons, while the most matches United won under Ferguson was 28.

Guardiola’s City have also out-scored Ferguson’s United by a considerable margin. The Cityzens scored a Premier League-record 106 goals in 2017-18, hit 102 in the 2019-20 season when they failed to win the league and amassed 99 in 2021-22. The most goals United scored in a campaign under Ferguson was 97 in 1999-2000.

Guardiola’s Barca scored 105 goals in 2008-09, 98 in 2009-10 and an astonishing 114 in his final campaign in 2011-12, even though they surrendered the title to Real Madrid. His Bayern Munich also had an insatiable appetite for goals, scoring 94 times in his debut campaign in the Bundesliga, which has a 34-game season.

Case for Ferguson

One argument in Ferguson’s favour is the impact he has had on the clubs he coached. He won 10 trophies with Aberdeen, more than half of the 19 gongs they have won in their history, and no team has broken the Celtic-Rangers duopoly since he left Pittodrie for Old Trafford.

Ferguson also transformed United’s fortunes, steering them to a first league title in 26 years and a first European Cup in 31 years. He turned them from a sleeping giant into the most successful side in English football history and one of the most popular teams in the world. His influence can also be seen in how United have declined since he departed in 2013, failing to win a league title since then while they recorded their worst finish in the Premier League this season, losing a record 13 games.

Guardiola, it could be argued, simply joined teams that were already hugely successful and continued to add to their honours list. But in the Catalan’s defence, he took a Barcelona side that was on the decline under Frank Rijkaard and turned them into a serial-winning machine while also playing scintillating football. That made him the most coveted coach in the world and meant he could handpick his next destinations.

He has enjoyed generous backing from the Abu Dhabi United group while at City and benefitted from working in a world-beating structure with his old friends from Barcelona, Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano.

Closing the gap

But Guardiola has also been the main reason for City’s growth within the last decade. It is down to the sustained success he has overseen that City are the most-watched team in the United States and are expanding the Etihad Stadium to 60,000.

He has also swelled City’s trophy list at an alarming rate. When he joined in 2016, the club had only four top-flight titles and a total of 18 trophies in their entire history. Guardiola has now won 17 trophies, while FA Cup glory at Wembley next week would make it 18, equalling the club’s previous count of trophies across 136 years in the space of just eight. And because of Guardiola, Ferguson might have to reconsider his comments after City won the 2012 title at his expense.

“They [City] can go on as much as they like. That’s what you would expect, but the history of our club stands us aside,” he said after Roberto Mancini’s team pipped United on goal difference. “We don’t need to worry about that. I think we have a rich history, better than anyone, and it will take them a century to get to our level of history.”

Twelve years on, City now have 35 trophies, compared to United’s 67. At Guardiola’s current rate of winning silverware, it could take just another 12 for City to topple United’s honour list.

Ferguson must be hoping that Guardiola does not want to stay in Manchester for as long as he did, as his legacy, as well as the club which he rebuilt, is at risk of being overshadowed once and for all by that of the man he mistakenly called ‘Pepe’. In truth, it already has been.