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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Alex Brotherton

He might not like it but Yaya Toure is helping to secure Pep Guardiola's Man City legacy

It's fair to say that Yaya Toure is not Pep Guardiola's biggest fan.

When the pair crossed paths for the second time in 2016 - six years after Toure had left Guardiola's Barcelona to join City - the Ivorian midfielder was already over the crest of his career.

Pep left the midfielder out of his 2016/17 Champions League squad and then refused to play him until he apologised for comments made by his controversial agent. Toure did return to the side, but after leaving the Blues in 2018 he accused Guardiola of being jealous of him and of not liking black players. Those claims have proved totally unfounded.

READ MORE: Erling Haaland is mixing Zlatan Ibrahimovich with Oleksandr Zinchenko to fill Man City voids

Fast forward four years and Yaya is back at a Premier League club, one that does not play in sky blue. On Tuesday Toure agreed to become an academy coach at Tottenham Hotspur.

Toure is the latest player or coach to have worked with Guardiola at City to make inroads into coaching at the top level. Whether he likes it or not, he is another example of the unique legacy that Pep's City will leave on English football and further afield.

Mikel Arteta is the obvious example here. The current Arsenal manager would not be where he is now had he not become Guardiola's assistant coach at City upon retiring as a player in 2016. He returned to lead the Gunners in 2019, and the Pep influence on his team's style is obvious.

Vincent Kompany is another. After leaving City in 2019 the former skipper became player-manager at Belgian giants Anderlecht but soon retired from playing to focus on his coaching commitments.

Kompany stabilised a side going through a difficult period and was rewarded by being hired as the new manager of Burnley. There are many elements of Guardiola's coaching and playing model that he has adopted and will try to implement at Turf Moor.

Looking to the future, the production line of Guardiola-influenced coaches shows no signs of slowing down. Ilkay Gundogan holds a UEFA B coaching license after working with the German FA last season, while Kevin De Bruyne was awarded his UEFA A license a few months ago.

When you add Xavi and the late Tito Vilanova to the list - the former was Guardiola's Barca assistant before taking up the reins himself - then there is a growing back catalogue of former Guardiola players who have made steps into coaching. Over the coming decades, it's likely that many will have ties to Pep's time at the Etihad Stadium.

Whether the branches of Guardiola's 'coaching tree' stretch out as far as that of Johan Cruyff, Sir Bobby Robson or Marcelo Bielsa remains to be seen. All three were and are revered in coaching circles, and continue to have a huge influence on Guardiola's methods and ideas.

One thing is for certain, Guardiola's legacy in England will go far beyond what his players do in sky blue. Toure coaching the next generation of Spurs players is fresh proof of that.

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