Guardiola at Man City: What does Pep's arrival mean for Iheanacho?

The Bayern Munich boss will take over the Manchester City reins in the summer, and the prospect of a hook-up with the Nigerian wonderkid is tantalizing for both parties

The announcement of Pep Guardiola as the new Manchester City manager, effective from the summer of 2016, had an air of the inevitable. Arguably the best manager in the world, having repeatedly expressed a desire to manage in the world’s premier league; it was only logical he would select its best side.

That side now includes young Kelechi Iheanacho, another for whom the future seems inevitable: the Nigeria international is destined for the very apex of world football it appears, from the moment he led the massed Nigerian fans in the UAE in choreographed chants of ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ back in 2013.

Providence has brought them together, but they are absolutely crucial to the fulfilment of each other’s goals. Manchester City, while on their day the Premier League’s top side, have a number of key players either the wrong side of 30 or pushing it: Yaya Toure, Pablo Zabaleta, David Silva, Bacary Sagna, Aleksandr Kolarov, Vincent Kompany to name a few are all approaching the sunset of their careers.

Clearly, one of the first tasks facing Guardiola will be reinvigorating the squad, and though City’s succession planning has not been excellent, they have in Iheanacho one of the brightest prospects in world football. The fact he has prospered already this season with very little to work with by way of playing time shows he is ready for the step-up.

Is Iheanacho the future of Man City?

However, there are quite a few rumples that bear smoothing over, as well as one big question mark: what is the player’s best position? Having starred for Nigeria at U17 level cutting in from the right to slide through-balls through opposing defences, he has featured almost exclusively for Manchester City as a central striker.

There is a great deal of irony in acknowledging that, in spite of Iheanacho’s impressive goal-return, he does not yet understand the sort of movements strikers ought to make in certain situations, even though he displays impressive awareness. He is also painfully one-footed, and is not a consistent enough dribbler to get away with it, neither does he use his physique effectively to shield the ball.

He will find in Guardiola a keen teacher. Marti Perarnau writes, in Pep Confidential, of Guardiola’s reaction to being told that Jerome Boateng had never been taught how to defend. To paraphrase, his eyes lit up at the prospect of a blank canvas, and he quickly went to work brushing it up.

The German international stands as proof of Guardiola’s didactic powers; being a revolutionary, the slightly naïve, somewhat romantic bent of youth holds a great deal of allure for the Bayern Munich manager. His work with Thiago Alcantara, both at Barcelona and now at Bayern Munich, speaks volumes; as with Pedro, a limited but willing inside-forward who served as the perfect counterweight as Lionel Messi dipped into the midfield zone.

Jerome Boateng is proof of what Guardiola can do with a 'blank canvas'

Lately, the precocious talents of Kingsley Coman have begun to blossom under the tutelage of the two-time Champions League-winning manager. The Frenchman, only on loan from Juventus, has frightening speed, but is now learning how to harness that in one-on-one situations on the far-side flank—a scenario Guardiola is keen to produce repeatedly through his principle of positional play.

It will be interesting to see the evolutionary path that he charts for Iheanacho. The youngster is held in high regard by the City faithful, being a firstfruit of a youth system that has been sidelined for a while as the Citizens assembled a crack squad of talented professionals. The strictures of FFP, however lax they may be proving to be, mean that such an approach may no longer be sustainable.

In that regard, the Nigerian is more than just a talented Academy graduate, but a mascot for the club’s self-sustainability. It is interesting that City hinted they had first sought to woo Guardiola back in 2012, before the appointment of the incumbent Manuel Pellegrini. Their bold move to bring in Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain, both of whom had worked with the Bayern Munich boss in Catalonia, was broadly seen as a move toward ‘Barcelonification’. What better way to consolidate this than by providing Guardiola with his very own La Masia to pick from?

The farm, wonderfully tended, is bearing fruit. City now boast some of the finest youngsters in the land, but Iheanacho is the crown jewel. He may be rough around the edges, but polishing him up is a necessary step for City (and Guardiola) if they are to build a dynasty in Barcelona’s image.