Guardiola gone and Slot sacked: the Premier League’s dugout reset has no recent parallel

Pick almost any of the Premier League’s biggest jobs and the man in the dugout has changed, or is about to. Pep Guardiola is leaving Manchester City after ten years. Arne Slot has been sacked by Liverpool a year on from winning the league. Chelsea have a new manager, Manchester United have made theirs permanent, and the clubs chasing Arsenal next season will mostly be doing it with a fresh voice on the touchline. There is no recent summer quite like this one.

What makes it strange is the timing. Managerial churn usually follows failure, and there has been plenty of that to go round. But two of these decisions involve men who have won titles, which is not how the carousel normally spins.

Guardiola steps away, Maresca steps in

City’s was the departure everyone half-expected and still found hard to picture. Guardiola is ending a decade at the Etihad, a run that reshaped how the English game thinks about possession and positioning. His final season did not bring the title back, with City finishing second to Arsenal, though they did beat Chelsea in the FA Cup final to send him off with silverware.

The club moved quickly for a successor with a familiar face. Enzo Maresca, Guardiola’s former assistant at City before spells at Leicester and Chelsea, has agreed a three-year deal to take over. City and Chelsea are still sorting out compensation, but the appointment itself is done, and Maresca will run the summer rebuild.

Slot pays the price for a fall from the top

Liverpool’s call is the one that will be argued over longest. Slot won the league in his first season in charge, Liverpool’s 20th, and was named manager of the year for it. Twelve months later he was out, dismissed on 30 May after a campaign that brought 19 defeats in all competitions, the club’s most in more than thirty years, and a fifth-place finish that only secured Champions League football on the final day.

The thinking, as it has been reported, was about next season rather than last. Keep Slot through a shaky start and Anfield could turn quickly, so the club acted first. Andoni Iraola, who took Bournemouth into Europe, was confirmed as his replacement on 4 June. It is a bold hire for a side that needs rebuilding more than rebranding.

Chelsea and United settle their own questions

Chelsea did not wait long after their FA Cup final defeat to act, turning to Xabi Alonso. The former Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen coach arrives on a four-year deal that starts on 1 July, taking the title of manager with a wider say over recruitment. He replaces Liam Rosenior, whose spell lasted barely a hundred days.

United, by contrast, chose to stop changing things. Michael Carrick, interim since January, has been handed a two-year contract after the best points-per-game return of any current Premier League manager and a third-place finish that put them back in the Champions League. After years of upheaval, continuity is the bold choice at Old Trafford.

Where it leaves next season

Arsenal are champions, finally, and they get to defend their title against rivals all working out new ideas at the same time. That is an advantage, at least at the start. New managers need a window and a pre-season to bend a squad to their way of playing, and three of the four chasing clubs are beginning that work from scratch.

It also means next season starts as an open question rather than a continuation. Guardiola’s City were the fixed point English football measured itself against for a decade. With him gone and Slot gone too, nobody can say yet what the new order looks like. That is the fun of it.

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