It’s going to be a mother of all battles next season. But the battle won’t be fought between the players but between the managers. With the arrival of Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte, next season all the big names will come head to head. Just imagine Pep vs Conte vs Klopp vs Wenger in the Premier League.
The Premier League just got interesting for the next term. At no time, there were so many huge names managing all the big clubs in England. But the most sought after battle will be between Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp. The rivalry that started in Germany will resume in England and hence this can be termed Pep vs Klopp 2.0.
The duo faced off against each other eight times and the record between them is 4-4. It has been this tight of a contest between the two of the best managers of this era. The last meeting between the two was eventually the last match that Klopp managed for Borussia Dortmund and the German won on penalties.
Jurgen Klopp arrived as a manager for Liverpool in October and looks to be settled now in his life in England. His Gegenpressing is giving dividends as the reds have progressed well under the enigmatic Klopp. The results against the big teams have given hope to the fans that Klopp is the right man to lead Liverpool.
Pep will face his biggest task of his career at Man City with the Manchester club experiencing a rather below par season by their recent set standards. Pep inherits an ageing squad and he has his work cut out to build a squad that can compete and win on all fronts.
Guardiola’s tactics are far more than just tiki-taka and the City squad have to get used to the strenuous methods of the Spaniard. It has to be seen how Guardiola’s tactics work against the likes of West Brom and Stoke City.
This is the area where Klopp’s gegenpressing has an upper hand to Pep’s tiki-taka. Pep himself has labelled Klopp’s former team unstoppable at times and it will be an interesting battle between the two super coaches. It will be interesting to see how Pep handles the tight schedule of Premier League, it will be a shock for the genius coach.
Because of the settling period, knowing the squad well enough and an idea of how the league works, Klopp has an advantage over Guardiola but as always this battle will unfold many chapters between them. Whoever wins this interesting Clash of minds between the two, in the end, football wins.
