Jamie Carragher sat in the studio, speaking calmly, but the message behind his words landed like a thunderbolt across English football. To him, Manchester City are not just a great team built on money, talent, and trophies. In his eyes, Manchester City are Pep Guardiola’s team, shaped by one man’s ideas, obsession, control, and footballing brain. And when that man finally walks away, Carragher believes the entire structure could shake, weaken, and possibly collapse. It is not hatred. It is not bitterness. It is not even rivalry talking. It is a warning.
Carragher’s view is simple but brutal. Manchester City, as the football world knows them today, exist because of Pep Guardiola. The style, the dominance, the fear they put into opponents, the calmness in chaos, the control of games, the way they suffocate teams until mistakes happen, the mentality that no game is ever truly lost, all of it flows from Guardiola. Remove him, Carragher argues, and City become something very different.
To understand why Carragher believes this, you have to look back to where Manchester City were before Pep arrived. City had money. They had big names. They had won titles. But they were never inevitable. They were never machines. They were never feared in Europe. They were strong, yes, but they were human. Beatable. Fragile at times. Then Pep came.
From the very first season, even when trophies did not arrive immediately, something changed. City began to control matches in a way English football had rarely seen. Full-backs moved into midfield. Centre-backs played like playmakers. Wingers stayed wide like chalk on boots. The ball moved faster than opponents could think. Pressing became organised punishment. Possession became a weapon, not a comfort.
Carragher watched this closely, week after week, season after season. He saw records broken. He saw 100-point seasons. He saw four league titles in a row. He saw City chase perfection like a sickness. He saw players arrive, adapt, improve, and sometimes leave when they could no longer meet Guardiola’s demands. And that is the core of Carragher’s argument.
Manchester City are not just built to win. They are built to win **Pep Guardiola’s way**. The squad is designed for his ideas. The training is designed for his methods. The recruitment is designed for his football brain. Even the mentality of the players has been shaped by years of his voice in the dressing room.Carragher believes that once that voice disappears, something fundamental will be lost.
He points to history. Barcelona after Pep Guardiola first left. Bayern Munich after Pep moved on. Both clubs remained big. Both continued to win trophies. But neither was the same. The fear factor dropped. The dominance softened. The identity blurred.
Now imagine Manchester City without Guardiola. Carragher believes the drop could be even sharper.
Why? Because City’s rise to absolute dominance happened almost entirely under Pep. Their identity is not decades old like Manchester United under Ferguson or Liverpool under Shankly, Paisley, and Klopp combined. City’s modern greatness is concentrated in one era, under one man. Remove that man, and you are asking the club to reinvent itself while standing at the top of the mountain. That is dangerous.
Carragher argues that replacing Guardiola is not like replacing a normal manager. You are not just changing a coach. You are changing the brain of the entire operation. Whoever comes next will either try to copy Pep and fail, or change the style and destabilise the squad. Either way, pain is coming.
He also points to the players. Many of City’s stars have never played elite football under any manager other than Guardiola. Players like Phil Foden grew up in Pep’s system. Rodri became the best midfielder in the world under Pep. Bernardo Silva became a different animal under Pep. Even Erling Haaland had to adapt parts of his game to fit Pep’s structure.
Carragher asks a scary question. What happens when these players no longer hear Pep’s instructions? What happens when the automatisms disappear? What happens when the system no longer protects them in every phase of play? Football margins are small. Take away a few percent of organisation, belief, and clarity, and dominance turns into struggle very quickly.
Carragher also talks about mentality. Guardiola does not just coach tactics. He coaches obsession. He demands perfection even after winning trebles. He pushes players when they are already exhausted. He refuses comfort. He creates an environment where winning once means nothing. That mentality is not easy to pass on.
A new manager might be excellent. He might be world-class. But will players listen the same way? Will they suffer the same way? Will they buy into the same madness after years of Guardiola’s intensity? Carragher doubts it.
He believes the first season after Guardiola leaves will expose cracks. Results may still be good, but performances will drop. Control will fade. Confidence will wobble. Rivals will smell blood. Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Bayern, all will sense vulnerability. Then comes the second season.
Carragher believes that is where real problems begin. Players who stayed for Pep start questioning their future. Leaders drift. Standards slip by inches, but inches matter at the top. Recruitment mistakes happen. Dressing room power shifts. Suddenly, Manchester City look mortal.
Carragher is careful with his words, but the message is clear. He does not see City collapsing overnight into mid-table. He sees something slower and more painful. A gradual fall from perfection. A club that still wins games but no longer terrifies. A club that still qualifies for Champions League but no longer controls it.
For a fanbase used to dominance, that feels like collapse.
Rivals would celebrate. Media narratives would change. Every dropped point would be analysed as proof that Guardiola was the glue holding everything together. Pressure would mount on the new manager. Comparisons would be relentless. Pep’s shadow would be impossible to escape.
Carragher also brings up another uncomfortable truth. Guardiola knows when to leave. He does not wait until decline fully arrives. He leaves when the job is complete or when he feels the cycle is ending. That means City could be hit with change at the exact moment the squad also needs renewal. That double transition is brutal.
New manager. Ageing stars. Hungry rivals. Possible off-field issues. All arriving at once. Carragher is not predicting disaster out of hope. He is predicting it out of logic.
Football history is filled with empires that believed they were permanent. None were. United after Ferguson. Arsenal after Wenger’s peak. Barcelona after Pep. Even Liverpool have felt the tremors when Klopp hinted at stepping away. Managers define eras. Guardiola defines Manchester City’s era.
Without him, Carragher believes City will have to learn something they have not had to face in years: uncertainty. No more guarantees. No more inevitability. No more calm dominance. Just football again. Messy, unpredictable, cruel.
And that, to Carragher, is the real collapse. Not relegation. Not humiliation. But the loss of control. The loss of identity. The loss of fear.
Manchester City may survive without Guardiola. They may even win trophies. But they will not be this Manchester City.
And when Pep finally walks away, taking his ideas, his obsession, his genius with him, Carragher believes the football world will finally see just how much of City’s greatness belonged to one man
