Evil genius??

The estimable Adam Clery quickly produced a video explaining exactly how Pep Guardiola managed to control Arsenal so thoroughly in Sunday's League Cup Final, and win the game so comfortably.

Watching that, it occurred to me that, if the great man had indeed figured out such an insuperable masterplan for thwarting his closest English rivals,.... had he not perhaps revealed it too early??  The League Cup is a nothing trophy; this kind of tactical dominance would have been far more valuable if deployed as a deadly surpriise in the crucial Premier League clash between the two clubs looming on the 19th of April. These tactics aren't likely to work so well - or at all - a second time, particularly as Arsenal have four weeks to work out a response.

But then I thought.... perhaps the wily old fox also knows how Arteta is likely to respond, and he already has a second, even more cunning masterplan worked out for that crunch game at The Etihad??

I wouldn't put it past him.

But then again, perhaps the great advantage of deploying this masterstroke now was showing everyone else how to beat Arsenal? If Arteta can't work out good solutions quickly, a lot of the games he faces in the league run-in period could suddenly be a lot more challenging than he'd anticipated.

Or perhaps...., well, perhaps Pep's major concern was not with any of this, but purely with the potential psychological impact of achieving such a dominant win over his arch-rival two months from the end of the season. Even if the manner of this victory is probably going to be unrepeatable, for City or anyone else, it will have spooked the shit out of Arsenal - and maybe that's enough. They had been starting to look dauntingly self-confident; that self-belief has now been dented.

We've always known that Pep is on a higher plane than most in his perception of the game, and his ability to mould revisions in tactics for particular games, particular opponents. But does that mental acuity also extend to the longer term, to being able to plan out a succession of matches, the course of an entire league campaign??  We may be about to find out.

Most people these days use the terms 'tactics' and 'strategy' completely interchangeably; but in the military context, there is a clear and important distinction. I recall an old college buddy of mine, who rose to quite a senior rank in the British Army, once summed it up like this: "Tactics is how you lose a battle. Strategy is how you lose a war."

Has our Pep just revealed himself to be not merely a tactical genius but a strategic one also?? And if this grand ploy truly is strategic - will it end in failure or success? Time will tell. There's still a fair bit of life in this title race.