Arjen Robben: Pep Guardiola will make Manchester City a better team

Arjen Robben assumed there was not so much more to learn about the game. After all, he has won eight league titles in his career, scored the winner in the

Champions League final and appeared in a World Cup final. Then came Pep Guardiola.

Robben, then 29, was one of Bayern Munich’s most senior players when Guardiola arrived at the club. What followed was probably the best period of Robben’s career, which saw him challenging for the player of the tournament at the 2014 World Cup finals.

‘Normally they say it’s when you’re young that you develop,’ says Robben, reflecting on a man who is, for two months at least, still his manager. ‘But working with him it’s like, still at my age, I can improve and become . . . “better” is maybe not the word — more flexible, different.’

It is an odd situation. Bayern are on course for a fourth successive Bundesliga title, Guardiola’s third; they have a Champions League quarter-final against Benfica this week; they are still in the German Cup; and Guardiola is, for now, the current Bayern manager rather than the next at Manchester City.

‘We are already talking in the past when we are still enjoying him!’ says the Dutchman, now 32, who is hoping to return to the team this week after a period out with injury. ‘Overall it is just a great experience to work with him because with him, it’s football 24-7. He thinks constantly about how to make the team better and how to improve players.

‘He’ll get some players to play in a different position not just because he thinks that better for the team but also because he thinks the qualities of the player can be used better. These little changes are quite interesting; this flexibility. Normally I played on the wing but under him I’ve played in midfield, I’ve played behind the striker, I’ve played as a striker on the right side.

‘He’s always challenging the team. He talks a lot about football and tactics and you have to go with him and have to start thinking yourself and constantly think about what you’re doing on the pitch.’

Of course, there are naysayers when it comes to Guardiola. Those who say he inherited a team who won the Treble under Jupp Heynckes and that he has failed to improve. Robben disagrees.

‘Each team is different because it’s a new manager with his own philosophy. But I think you can also say [we are] better, the way we developed as a team, the way we are playing very dominant football.

‘We are even more flexible, we can play different systems. Maybe before, if you win the Treble, what can you say? What can improve? You’ve won the maximum amount of titles. But, still, football-wise, technically, the system: I think we’ve developed as a team. Even more, I feel the players individually have improved under Guardiola.’

And they have felt his charisma. ‘He shows his emotions on the pitch and on the training pitch. You have managers who sit still for 90 minutes on the bench and say something at half-time and then you have managers who are more emotional, like Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool. I like it. I enjoy it. He’s there. He’s full commitment, 100 per cent.’

It is heartening for Manchester City fans, who may not be going to this week’s Champions League quarter-final, their first, with Paris Saint-Germain, in the best spirits. The twilight months of Manuel Pellegrini are not proving to be glorious, but then next season brings new hope.

‘Definitely he will put his philosophy on the team,’ said Robben. ‘The way he thinks about football, how football has to be played, that’s what he wants to bring to Manchester. So it’s going to be interesting with the squad he has now and what players are coming in and it will be a curious project to follow.’

At Bayern, though, Guardiola was always likely to be a short-term project. They thrived before and have grown still further as a global force under the Spaniard. It seems they don’t fear their current manager combining his skills with Abu Dhabi’s oil revenues.

‘I don’t know if worry is the word,’ says Robben, pondering the City-plus-Pep threat. ‘The big difference is financial. The money in England is way more. But I think we have to go with our own strengths. This is a traditional club and one which has developed over the years, even since I’ve been here.’

Robben has been intrinsic to that rise. But he was also, via a short spell at Real Madrid, at the start of Chelsea’s rise and part of Jose Mourinho’s first, great Chelsea team, where, along with Damien Duff, he provided the skill, speed and width.