How Guardiola compares with Ferguson and other English managerial greats

Pep Guardiola won 17 trophies in his 10-year stay at Man City, but how does his record stand up in English football? Pep Guardiola is leaving Manchester City after changing the face of English football over the last 10 years. But how do his achievements at City compare with those of other great managers to have worked in England down the years, such as Alex Ferguson, Bob Paisley and Brian Clough? The numbers and records nearly speak for themselves. Pep and the Premier League Guardiola always valued the domestic league higher than any other competition and he established an era of record-breaking dominance, leading City to six titles in his 10 seasons (60 percent) — including the unprecedented feat of four in a row (2021-24). Those six titles came in a seven-year span. He finished outside the top two on just two occasions. As an overall percentage, only Paisley (66.67 percent) has a better title-winning record of modern-day managers. In his nine years at Liverpool (1974-83), he won the English league six times and was only outside the top two once. Ferguson won the league title 13 times in 26 full seasons at United (1986-2013) but started out at a lower base, with the club being near the bottom of the standings and without a championship in 19 years when he took over. From the year of Ferguson’s first league crown (1993) to when he retired, United’s title-winning percentage was 61.9 percent – slightly higher than Guardiola’s but lower than Paisley’s. Pep and the Champions League For a club of City’s Abu Dhabi-fuelled resources, its record in the Champions League under Guardiola has been underwhelming — and he acknowledges that. One title (2023), one more final (losing to Chelsea in 2021) and just one other semifinal appearance (2022) is a disappointing return for a team widely regarded as one of the best in Europe for most of his reign. Guardiola can, of course, point to two more Champions League titles in his four-year stint at Barcelona. Ferguson won the Champions League twice with United, though even that was also regarded as a below-par return considering the team’s domestic dominance. Of British managers, Clough and Paisley hold the most enviable records. Clough won the European Cup with Nottingham Forest in back-to-back years (1979 and 1980) — a remarkable feat at a provincial club — while Paisley won the competition three times (1977, 1978 and 1981) in five years. Pep’s total trophy trail Guardiola has won 17 major trophies in his decade at City, putting him only behind Ferguson in English football’s all-time list. Ferguson captured 28 trophies, but had 16 years longer in the job than Guardiola. Next comes Paisley, with 14 major trophies, followed by former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger (10, of which a record seven were FA Cups), Clough (nine, across his spells at Derby and Forest) and former Man United manager Matt Busby (eight). Pep’s points totals Under Guardiola, City racked up two of the top three points totals in English top-flight history — 100 in the 2017-18 season (Guardiola’s second in charge) and 98 in the 2018-19 season. In that seven-season span from 2018-2024, City set new standards in consistent excellence by collecting more than 90 points in four league campaigns — helped by having a top-class rival in Liverpool pushing it all the way. That Liverpool team under Jurgen Klopp picked up 99 points in 2019-20, when breaking up City’s run of titles, and 97 points in 2018-19 when taking City to the final game of the season. In the era when it was two points for a win (before 1981), Liverpool held the record for most points in a season with 68 in 1978-79. That equates to 98 points if there had been three points for a win, but Liverpool played 42 games instead of the current 38-game campaign. Also notable was Chelsea’s haul of 95 points in 2004-05, the first season of Jose Mourinho’s first spell there. That was a record at the time. Pep’s records – and a first Guardiola has never been shy to highlight the records he has set at City – and there have been many. The only team in the nearly 140-year history of English football to win four top-flight league titles in a row. The first team to win 100 points in a top-flight season (2017-18). The most goals – 106 – scored in a single Premier League campaign (also 2017-18). The first team to win the domestic treble of the league, FA Cup and League Cup in the same season (2018-19). Guardiola also emulated Ferguson in both winning the Premier League-FA Cup-Champions League treble (United in 1999, City in 2023) and wrapping up a Premier League title with five games still to play (United in 2001, City in 2018) — a record until it was broken by Liverpool in 2020 (seven games to play). Something Guardiola never managed, however, was Wenger’s greatest feat of going an entire league season unbeaten (with Arsenal in 2004).