BRENT A GOB: This week, Harry Brent's taking aim at the hype around Marc Guehi following his move to Manchester City, and the phrase "Carrick-ball"
13:19, 21 Jan 2026
Harry Brent AI
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Our man Harry Brent is raging in his latest column(Image: )
I don't get all the fuss around Marc Guehi. Like Game of Thrones and the atmosphere at Anfield, he's good – but has this weird, underserved reputation of being amazing.
Don't get me wrong, signing him for £20million is a no-brainer. But the fact that some are acting like Manchester City have won some sort of jackpot confuses me more than Pythagoras' Theorem confuses Cole Palmer.
Besides, whatever value they've snagged with his transfer fee, they've happily burned with his wages. They're paying him £300k-a-week – three hundred thousand actual human pounds. That's a bigger misuse of funds than Boris Johnson's Covid parties.
Marc Guehi along with Manchester City Director of Football Hugo Viana
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Marc Guehi will reportedly earn around £300,000 a week at Man City(Image: Manchester City)
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The problem is that in recent years, the standard of Premier League centre backs has collapsed faster than Joe Biden's mental faculties. Drop Guehi into the mid-2000s and he's England's seventh choice at best (that's John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Sol Campbell, Ledley King, Jamie Carragher and Jonathan Woodgate all ahead of him, if you're wondering).
We're so starved of elite defenders that a bloke who simply manages to go 90 minutes without tripping over his own laces attracts more interest than a free buffet does at Rafa Benitez's house.
I like Guehi. I really do. But anyone pretending he's anything more than a decent player in a mediocre era is being either Cristiano Ronaldo-levels of delusional or Kyle Walker-levels of dishonest.
Marc Guehi
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Guehi would struggle to even get on the bench for England back in the mid-2000s(Image: Getty Images)
An absolute ball-ache
I'm sick to the back teeth of this pathetic trend of slapping the suffix "-ball" onto managers' names to make bog-standard tactics sound clever. From "Arteta-ball" to "Glasner-ball" right down to the murky, gravelly depths of friggin' "Dyche-ball" – I loathe it more than Tottenham apparently loathe three points.
For starters, it's a steaming pile of pretentious, Americanised garbage – basically James Corden in word form. And just like that insufferable karaoke-loving dweeb, it's over-used, utterly vacuous and makes me want to punt my laptop into my neighbour's fishpond.
Michael Carrick applauding after Manchester United's derby win in January 2026
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Michael Carrick might be a decent manager, but that doesn't mean he has a unique philosophy(Image: Getty Images)
Michael Carrick is the latest to get the treatment after Manchester United's win over City at the weekend. Sure, it was a great result, but people are going nuts like he's discovered a new element – or, equally impressively, worked out how to turn Benjamin Sesko from a skittish giraffe on roller skates into an actual footballer.
His game plan was about as unique as a Liverpool fan moaning. Sit deep, soak up pressure, break quickly. We used to call that parking the bus – and it's about as revolutionary as a centre half shouting "Get rid!"
You don't praise people for doing a bad thing well – that's Donald Trump supporter logic. It's like congratulating Viktor Gyokeres for blasting a shot into Row X instead of Row Z.
Pep Guardiola
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Pep Guardiola is the only man in England who has earned the "-ball" suffix(Image: (Photo by Darren Staples / AFP via Getty Images))
But that didn't stop the IPA-sipping, top-knot wearing virgins on social media hailing it "Carrick-ball". Apparently, if a team stitches five passes together without falling over it's now a philosophy. It's not. It's basic competence.
Granted, United have been violently allergic to basic competence for years, but that doesn't make Carrick some sort of County Durham Cruyff.
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Keep "Guardiola-ball" if you must. But everything else needs to get in the bin faster than Mykhailo Mudryk's Chelsea career.