Joe Hart on Post-Pep City, Arsenal's Title Defense and Alonso's Chelsea Challenge
Manchester City without Pep Guardiola.
Xabi Alonso in the Chelsea dugout.
Arsenal trying to defend a Premier League title for the first time in two decades.
The new season is already loaded with storylines, and Joe Hart can feel the weight of them.
The former City and England goalkeeper, now a BBC Sport pundit, unpacked it all on BBC Radio 5 Live's Monday Night Club – and he started with the obvious void.
Life after Pep: Maresca walks into the storm
Ten years of Guardiola. A stack of trophies. A style of play that bent the league to his will. Now it’s Enzo Maresca’s turn at Etihad Stadium, and Hart believes the real heat on the Italian will come from outside the club, not within it.
“I think the club isn't heaping massive expectation on this season,” Hart said. “I think they still believe that they've got the team and they've got the quality to challenge.”
City’s summer has already been chaotic and expensive. They briefly smashed the transfer record for an English player to land Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest for £116m, a huge fee for a midfielder still proving himself at the top level. At the same time, they look likely to lose Rodri – Spain’s World Cup Golden Ball winner and the metronome of their midfield – to Barcelona.
The recruitment machine has not stopped. Morocco teenager Ayyoub Bouaddi, just 18, is in talks over an £85.6m move from Lille, and City still want Chelsea’s Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez.
All of that plays out against a bruising start on the pitch: a 3-0 Community Shield defeat to Arsenal in Cardiff on Sunday. No trophy, no Guardiola, and a squad in flux. The questions are obvious.
Hart, who won two league titles with City, doesn’t sense panic inside the building.
“I still feel they'll want to be pushing on all fronts,” he said. “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.
“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 message is clear: City know this is a transition year. The rest of the league will not care.
Arsenal step into champion territory
From 2020-21 to 2023-24, City made the Premier League title feel like their private property, lifting it four years in a row. The past two seasons have reminded everyone how hard that dominance is to sustain. Now it’s Arsenal’s turn to discover the truth Hart learned the hard way.
He lived it. Two titles with City, in 2011-12 and 2013-14. Neither successfully defended.
“I was walking on water at that time,” he admitted. “I actually thought I was 'that guy’.”
Then reality bit.
“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 is the test now facing Mikel Arteta’s side. They hunted City for years. Now they are the hunted.
“And it's really important how Arsenal are going to handle that,” Hart said. “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. It's ironic that getting to the top is the easy thing, it really is.”
Arsenal have already landed the first psychological blow of the campaign with that 3-0 win over City in Cardiff. The real examination comes when the first bad week arrives, when points slip away, when injuries bite and the “champion scrutiny” Hart talks about kicks in.
Alonso and Chelsea: a different kind of rebuild
While City and Arsenal wrestle with the burden of expectation, Chelsea are wrestling with identity. Xabi Alonso arrives at Stamford Bridge with a glowing reputation as a modern coach, but also with a club that has lurched from project to project.
What is certain is that the Premier League is entering a different phase. Guardiola is gone. City are reshaping. Arsenal are no longer plucky challengers. Chelsea are betting big on another new idea.
For Hart, the lesson from his own career is blunt. Reaching the summit is one thing. Staying there, with everyone waiting for you to slip, is something else entirely.
