Manchester City said goodbye to Pep Guardiola at the beginning of last week, but are still waiting to kickstart their new era
elsea's Italian head coach Enzo Maresca waves as the team warms up ahead of the English Premier League football match between Burnley and Chelsea at Turf Moor in Burnley, north-west England on November 22, 2025. (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP via Getty Images) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE. No use with unauthorized audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or 'live' services. Online in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No video emulation. Social media in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No use in betting publications, games or single club/league/player publications. /
elsea's Italian head coach Enzo Maresca waves as the team warms up ahead of the English Premier League football match between Burnley and Chelsea at Turf Moor in Burnley, north-west England on November 22, 2025. (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP via Getty Images) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE. No use with unauthorized audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or 'live' services. Online in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No video emulation. Social media in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No use in betting publications, games or single club/league/player publications. /
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Manchester City's owners have never liked to wait around. Even if they did only buy the club with a day left in the 2008 summer transfer window, they still went out and bought Robinho from Real Madrid.
The last time they announced that a manager was leaving, as journalists came out of the press conference room, they found a piece of paper serving as a press release that Pep Guardiola would be taking over from Manuel Pellegrini. A statement in October 2024 that long-term sporting director Txiki Begiristain would be stepping down at the end of the season included the appointment of Hugo Viana to succeed him.
It is a belief shared by chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and CEO Ferran Soriano that the more transfer business can be done early in the summer, the better for the club over the next year. If you are still shopping in the final week or in January, clubs know you are more desperate and can hike the prices up.
It isn't quite two weeks since Guardiola's departure was confirmed, and Enzo Maresca is unofficially known to be the next man, yet in City terms that feels like a long void. Most of last week was dedicated to tributes to the outgoing manager but since then there has been nothing.
That isn't because any glaring issues have popped up or minds have been changed as much as it is the boring process of i's being dotted and t's crossed, and many supporters have likely checked out of the season for a break before the World Cup starts. However, it does leave the new post-Guardiola era on pause.
Al Mubarak's annual address, used to review what has happened over the last 12 months and set City's stall out for what is to come, has not yet been aired. Thursday marks a year since City agreed the first of what would be four signings in ten days before the Club World Cup.
City had an extra need to act last summer as they looked to bounce back from a disappointing season with a summer tournament, but it still sent the strong message that the club hierarchy always look to. With every day that passes without Maresca being officially announced as Guardiola's successor, City's handover loses a little more polish.
As Blues bosses know, the longer the quiet at the start of a summer, the busier everybody is going to end up for the rest of it.