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With the arrival of Antonio Conte, Pep Guardiola, Claude Puel, Aitor Karanka, and another season for Jürgen Klopp, there is going to be an abundance of top quality managers alive and kicking in the Premier League next season. All jumping and dancing on the side-lines, hitting every ball and making every tackle. With them having a hands-on-approach to their management and training of their players, while also spending a significant time on improving players’ abilities.
These characteristics are all too apparent in the managers mentioned above, with Antonio Conte jumping up and down on the side-lines and barking instructions to his well organised Italian side, coaching them during the games, one of the main highlights of the recent European Championships. While, the new tika-taka football, installed into the Barcelona way of playing by Pep Guardiola, reshaped how football has been played in the last 8 years, showing an example of how new coaches have come up with fresh ideas of how to make their team a successful one.
Whether that is the idea of possession, fast intense pressure to get the ball back and attack quickly or defending and then springing a counter-attack to surprise the other team. All of these philosophies have their advantages and disadvantages and they are all preferred by different managers who have contrasting beliefs of how the game should be played making for a very interesting Premier League season on the horizon.
Pep Guardiola
Guardiola took his tika-taka style of play to new extremes when he worked endlessly on the training pitches at La Masia to get across to his players his beliefs and way of playing. Under his guidance he moulded and massively improved players’, such as Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi, all of whom are now household names and players considered world-class.
Manchester City fans will hope Pep Guardiola has similar success in developing their players, with Raheem Sterling, and new signings John Stones and Leroy Sane all being young with the ability to become world-class players. He will hope to adapt the clubs style of play and create a more fluid possession based game, by getting the ball back quickly and working in small teams to pass the ball around. In turn he hopes to dominate the English Premier league by working at their new work of the art training facilities.
Antonio Conte
Antonio Conte as a player played with his heart of his sleeve and he definitely has bought that passion and aggression with him into management. Throughout his games he is never seen sitting down and is often can be heard berating his players from the side-lines through the television microphones.
As a manager, he says himself he trains his team hard and intense to ensure they are fully prepared for match day. Also he wants his team to have an identity, one that plays with aggression and passion, together with the fans of the team he is representing. This is evident with his Juventus team, where he won three Serie A titles, and with his Italian team. Under his guidance at Juventus Paul Pogba prospered into one of the most promising young talents in the world and at the recent 2016 European Championships Emanuele Giaccherini, the Sunderland reject, put in man of the matches performances. This highlights how Conte looks to not only create a successful team but also aims to improve players during his management and coaching.
One of the achievements he targets during his tenure at Chelsea, after singling out young promising players from Chelsea’s academy, for example, 19-year-old Ola Aina and 20-year-old Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
Jürgen Klopp
A manager who has already honed his skills and is continuing to do so in the Premier League is the German character Jurgen Klopp. Next Premier League season will mark his first full season with Liverpool after only managing them for just over half a season.
Like with the other managers mentioned above Klopp has reinvented a style of football that is his flagship tactics from his time at Borussia Dortmund, his famed ‘gegenpressing’ philosophy. This philosophy is the idea of the players hunting in high intensity packs, winning the ball back as quickly as possibly and then springing into a dangerous attack, catching the opposition out of position. Since he became manager of Liverpool in 2015 this style of play has been very apparent with his tactical changes he has done on the training pitch and the signings he has made off it, bringing in players like Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane whom are both very fast and can run all day making it easier for them to fulfil this intense pressure that Klopp expects from his players.
Aitor Karanka
A Spanish manager who started his footballing coaching career as assistant to Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid before deciding to take the step up to become a manager at Middlesbrough. An astute manager whose teams are well organised and defensively strong, he has enjoyed a lot of success in his short managerial career.
He will once again hope to showcase his traits that have earned his many plaudits in and outside of England. In 2015, just two years after he was appointed at Middlesbrough, his first job in English football, he led his team to the Championship Play-off final and the year after gained promotion to the Premier League after coming runners-up. His tactics are very similar to that of his teacher Mourinho’s with him emphasising the key of a structured defence that enables his teams to counter attack quickly and effectively by using possession intelligently. This is a philosophy that the Premier League will see in the forthcoming season with his Middlesbrough team full of pace and direction, reminiscent of the tactics that served Leicester so well last season.
In addition, supporters are going to be treated to an increase of the classic 4-4-2 formation, with that being Karankas’ preference with his teams playing attacking football with two strikers.
Claude Puel
New Premier League manager, like so many others, he started his footballing life as a player and then decided to focus his attention after retirement on management. As a manager Claude Puel has a strong pedigree winning the Ligue 1 title with Monaco in his first full season as a first-team coach and most recently spent the past four years at Nice, where he developed and improved a young squad qualifying for the Europa League in the meantime.
Puel is known for his attacking yet pragmatic football and he told the Southampton club website that he likes his teams to keep the ball and make the most of possession, similar to that of former manager Ronald Koeman. With Southampton’s renowned academy Claude Puel seems the ideal man to develop the young players at the club and exceed expectations.
The upcoming season promises to be the best ever for the amount of world-class high quality managers on offer, all with different philosophies and tactics, making it the most fascinating and unknown season for years. Antonio Conte and Jurgen Klopp will look to bring a fast paced and intense pressing game, while other newcomers Pep Guardiola and Claude Puel are looking to transfer their idea of a possession based game onto their new players.
