Guardiola’s City legacy: How he stacks up against English managerial greats

Pep Guardiola is departing Manchester City after a decade that transformed English football.

His achievements at City invite comparison with legendary managers such as Alex Ferguson, Bob Paisley and Brian Clough.

The statistics and records largely speak for themselves.

Guardiola prioritized domestic league success above all, establishing an era of dominance with six titles in 10 seasons — a 60 percent win rate — including an unprecedented four consecutive championships from 2021 to 2024. Those six titles were secured within a seven-year span, and his City side finished outside the top two only twice.

Among modern managers, only Bob Paisley boasts a higher title-winning percentage at 66.67 percent. In nine seasons at Liverpool from 1974 to 1983, Paisley won the English league six times and finished outside the top two just once.

Alex Ferguson won 13 league titles in 26 full seasons at Manchester United, but he inherited a club near the bottom of the standings that had not won a championship in 19 years. From Ferguson’s first league title in 1993 until his retirement, United’s title-winning percentage stood at 61.9 percent — slightly above Guardiola’s but below Paisley’s.

Given City’s Abu Dhabi-backed resources, Guardiola’s Champions League record has been underwhelming, a point he acknowledges.

City won the Champions League once, in 2023, reached one other final, losing to Chelsea in 2021, and made just one additional semifinal appearance, in 2022. For a team widely regarded among Europe’s elite throughout his tenure, that return is disappointing. Guardiola can point to two Champions League titles from his four years at Barcelona.

Ferguson also won the Champions League twice with United, a tally considered below par given the club’s domestic dominance.

Among British managers, Brian Clough and Paisley hold the most enviable European records. Clough won the European Cup with Nottingham Forest in back-to-back years (1979 and 1980), a remarkable achievement for a provincial club. Paisley won the competition three times (1977, 1978, 1981) in five seasons.

Guardiola has won 17 major trophies in his decade at City, placing him second only to Ferguson on English football’s all-time list.

Ferguson collected 28 trophies but managed for 16 years longer than Guardiola.

Paisley follows with 14 major trophies, then Arsene Wenger with 10 (including a record seven FA Cups), Clough with nine across Derby and Forest, and Matt Busby with eight.

Under Guardiola, City achieved two of the three highest points totals in English top-flight history: 100 in 2017-18 and 98 in 2018-19. Across seven seasons from 2018 to 2024, City set new standards of consistent excellence by surpassing 90 points in four campaigns, aided by the challenge of a top-class Liverpool side.

Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool collected 99 points in 2019-20, breaking City’s run of titles, and 97 points in 2018-19 when City won the league on the final day.

In the era of two points for a win (before 1981), Liverpool set a record of 68 points in 1978-79, which equates to 98 points under the three-point system but over a 42-game season.

Chelsea’s 95-point haul in 2004-05, Jose Mourinho’s first season, stood as a record at the time.

Guardiola has never been reluctant to highlight the records he has set at City — and they are numerous.

City became the only team in nearly 140 years of English football to win four consecutive top-flight league titles. They were the first to reach 100 points in a season (2017-18), scored 106 goals in a Premier League campaign (also 2017-18), and were the first to win the domestic treble of league, FA Cup and League Cup in the same season (2018-19).

Guardiola also matched Ferguson by winning the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League treble (United in 1999, City in 2023) and by clinching the Premier League title with five games to spare (United in 2001, City in 2018) — a record until Liverpool bettered it in 2020 by winning with seven games left.

One feat Guardiola never achieved was Wenger’s invincible season, going an entire league campaign unbeaten with Arsenal in 2004.