Joe Hart on Life After Pep and Arsenal's New Reality
The Premier League is about to find out what Manchester City look like without Pep Guardiola, whether Xabi Alonso can wake Chelsea up, and how Arsenal cope with the weight of being the team everyone wants to knock off their perch.
Joe Hart has lived through this kind of pressure. Two league titles with City. The high, the hangover, and the scrutiny that follows. On BBC Radio 5 Live's Monday Night Club, the former City and England goalkeeper cut through the noise around the new season.
Maresca’s inheritance – and the noise around City
Guardiola has walked away after a decade of relentless winning and reinvention. In steps Enzo Maresca, tasked with following a manager who turned City into a machine and a reference point for the rest of Europe.
Big job. Big shadow. But Hart doesn’t think the real heat will come from inside the Etihad.
"I think the club isn't heaping massive expectation on this season," he said. "I think they still believe that they've got the team and they've got the quality to challenge."
That’s the balance: City still expect to compete on every front, but Hart senses a shift in tone behind the scenes.
"I still feel they'll want to be pushing on all fronts. But the same sort of pressure, as an organisation, I don't think will be on this season… I don't think they're going to be put under that pressure internally."
Outside? Very different story.
"Externally, there's always going to be the noise. Maresca will come immediately under fire in terms of how people want to jump all over Man City if they do struggle.
Internally, I think they're intelligent enough as a business to understand that what's going on right now is going to be difficult."
The backdrop is already complicated. City briefly broke the transfer record for an English player to sign Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest for £116m. A huge fee for a midfielder still to prove himself at the very top.
At the same time, Rodri – Spain’s World Cup Golden Ball winner and the heartbeat of Guardiola’s side – looks likely to join Barcelona. Talks are ongoing for 18-year-old Morocco international Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille at £85.6m, a move that underlines both City’s planning and the scale of the rebuild.
They also still want Chelsea’s Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez. Another statement signing if it happens, another piece in a puzzle Maresca is only just starting to assemble.
All this after a flat 3-0 Community Shield defeat to Arsenal in Cardiff on Sunday. No trophy, no real rhythm, and plenty of people ready to ask whether this is the first sign of a post-Pep dip.
Arsenal’s turn to feel the weight
City know this territory. They won four straight titles from 2020-21 to 2023-24, then fell just short in each of the past two seasons. Sustaining that level is brutal. Hart thinks Arsenal are about to understand exactly how brutal.
He remembers his own experience clearly. Two titles with City in 2011-12 and 2013-14. Neither defended.
"I was walking on water at that time. I actually thought I was 'that guy'," he admitted.
Then comes the comedown.
"And football finds a way, really quickly, of showing you that you're not. And when things started to unravel, which they will in any season, [they] seemed to really unravel because all of a sudden [you're under] that kind of champion scrutiny."
That’s the shift Arsenal now face. Last season’s chase is over. They are the ones being chased.
"And it's really important how Arsenal are going to handle that," Hart said, before underlining the role of the man in charge. "But Mikel Arteta has done a brilliant job, and he makes really big decisions and bold decisions. And it's about how you handle that first hurt."
The line that lingers is the one that will ring in Arsenal ears all season.
"It's ironic that getting to the top is the easy thing, it really is."
The title is theirs. The target is on their back. Now we find out whether they can live with the same ruthless standards that defined Guardiola’s City – without Guardiola there to enforce them.
