Pep Lijnders teaming up with Manchester City was arguably the most fascinating development in the recent transfer window. It was certainly unexpected, given Lijnders’ deep ties to Jurgen Klopp, a major rival of City. This partnership is like combining heavy metal with Pep Guardiola’s smooth jazz.

While City has always been content to make waves, they’ve done so at a more measured tempo than what Lijnders typically advocates. This pace differs from what Guardiola now feels is necessary, considering the evolving dynamics of the Premier League.

A single phone call was all it took to outline this new collaboration, with Guardiola first seeking Klopp’s advice and approval before proceeding.

This marks a substantial transformation, a rare opportunity for City to engage in a learning phase, something they’ve seldom experienced under Guardiola’s reign of dominance.

The shift extends beyond style and squad changes—nine new players have joined this year alone. Equally crucial are the alterations in the backroom staff’s composition and the dynamics within that team.

It took one phone call between Pep Guardiola and Pep Lijnders to iron out what this double-act might look like 

Lijnders brings added ‘intensity and another vision of football’ to the Manchester City coaching staff according to Guardiola 

Having long emphasized the importance of the “team behind the team” throughout his nearly decade-long tenure in Manchester, Guardiola recognized the need to integrate Lijnders, 42, alongside other newcomers such as James French, a set-piece coach from Liverpool, and Kolo Toure, who has been elevated from the Under-18s, into both the staff and player circles.

Quite a lot of that groundwork was done out in America over the summer, during the ultimately unsuccessful Club World Cup campaign which ended when City were picked off on the counter-attack by Al Hilal in the last 16. The trip was pitched as positive, with sources talking up the ‘vibes’.

But despite all that vibing, Guardiola has been at this long enough to know that three weeks in the Floridian sun isn’t enough. Four days after the opening-day victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers – after which Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher lauded the Lijnders impact, the (even higher) defensive line that would soon be their undoing against Tottenham – City’s staff were bonding again.

The Black Cat, a vibrant bar just down the road from the Catalan restaurant Tast synonymous with City, housed around 50 employees seen as integral to the team’s success for an informal night of darts and shuffleboard. 

Guardiola wants everybody involved in these events – the chefs, the baristas, the maintenance staff, the analysis department, the security guards. He places great value in them.

This is a man who, in the months before turning up in 2016, asked for headshots with names of every staff member in the first-team building, so unity is important to him.

The nights together, the organised events, have happened routinely during his tenure. In his first two months, they stayed at Celtic Manor for five days – in between two trips to Swansea City in the League Cup and Premier League – and enjoyed team BBQs.

These were alien concepts to long-standing staff, who were perplexed at being involved in meetings with the squad.

The two Peps celebrate City’s demolition of Wolves on the opening weekend of the season

Lijnders and Jurgen Klopp formed a formidable and successful partnership at Liverpool 

In the immediate term, as City figure out their tactical identity, Lijnders, who had a brief and unsuccessful spell last year as manager of Red Bull Salzburg after leaving Liverpool, has been the one to really jive with and Guardiola has clicked with his new No 2 away from the wider group. 

It was never more obvious than when, a week after the Black Cat trip, the two men accepted an invite from Neil Warnock to watch the veteran’s one-man show at the Opera House. There was some surprise from Warnock that the offer was taken up, with Guardiola and Lijnders staying until the end and going backstage for a chat.   

Guardiola has always been somebody who wants to spend time with his staff away from work, usually over dinner, and with the majority of the old guard now gone – head analyst Carles Planchart also left in the summer – it is time to create new connections. And it is different.

‘It can give us something we didn’t have last season in terms of rhythm, intensity, in terms of another vision of football,’ Guardiola said when describing Lijnders’ appointment. Unlike Lillo and Enzo Maresca before him, the two of them quieter voices to balance out Guardiola’s excitable style, Lijnders is exceptionally similar to the boss. The players have felt that, a hands-on assistant.

‘It’s his energy,’ Rico Lewis tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘You can see so much passion about him, the way he wants to win the ball high up, not allow transitions and counter pressing.

‘Every single thing we do in training is the same idea. He’ll be screaming, so energetic in every single thing we do – it pushes us to be similar to him.’

Guardiola, whose side are back in action against Everton on Saturday, candidly admitted over the summer that success had finally caught up with some players, that it had confused them. 

He put that down to the number of injuries they suffered last season, in the catastrophe of finishing third, and suggested it came from a lack of focus. Wounded rivals, particularly Liverpool, pounced. ‘Winning annoys those who don’t win and they wait for you,’ he said.

Erling Haaland looks more energised in his defending from the front since the arrival of Lijnders 

Kolo Toure (right) has been promoted from City’s Under 18s to form part of Guardiola’s new-look coaching team

Something had to change. What had worked for years, with Lillo and Vicens integral to countless pieces of silverware, has been refreshed. There has been a shift, more of a relentlessness in messaging – especially during tactical drills – evidenced to a degree by some renewed vigour in defending from the front. Erling Haaland looks energised, displaying additional menace out of possession.

Alongside Toure, French, a day-to-day coach as well as the corner expert, is more visible on the touchline – much like one of his predecessors, Nicolas Jover, is at Arsenal – barking instructions to players.

There has also been flexibility in City’s tactical approach to matches – notably in leaving the Emirates with a point and sometimes dropping the defensive line back slightly, then mixing up how quickly to attack spaces.

Three points behind the leaders, City still feel like an outside bet to reclaim the title – and whether the adjustments positively impact their fortunes will only become clearer later in the season – but Guardiola is still evolving and still putting in the work. And maybe some of it is out of his comfort zone.