For Pep Guardiola, its all about the details. That is as true now as it waslast season, when Manchester City looked far from the fearsome, all-conquering side they do now, and in fact as true as it was 10 years ago, when he was just setting out on his coaching career.

So many doubted that Guardiola could dominate English football like he did in Spain and Germany, but that is exactly what he has done.

City have spent more Alfred Morris Jerseys than their rivals in recent years, yes, but the gulfin terms ofboth cla s andpointsis not somethingthat can simply be bought. After all, City spent plenty ahead of Guardiolas first season, too, but the outcome was very different.

Guardiola did not do too much differently last season.The markings onthe training pitcheswere the same, the gra s was the same length, thefull-backs had the same instructions, the midfielders and forwards were pretty much the same, they were told to defend high, to pre s, to pa s.

The difference is thatthe smallest details are now in place.

Guardiola has been asked countle s times what has been the difference between last season and this, and every time the answer issimple:that he and his players have had more time working together.

It soundsoverly simplistic, but he is right. The players finally understand exactly what is required of them.

Few City players speak openly about Guardiola's specificmethods butVincent Kompany, via former Blues striker Craig Bellamy,has revealed that thesquad now know what is demanded of them to such a level that they have barely worked on tactics in training for months.

" Pep has taken a while to get us where he wanted us," Kompany says, according to Bellamy, who was speaking on Sky Sports' The Debate Live.

But now honestly, its just there, we know what were doing. Its been programmed into us, hes got Ceedee Lamb T Shirts us into his way, and now training is just recovery and that kind of stuff because were programmed into what he wants.

That is the biggest difference between this season and last. There were signs of the Guardiola blueprint during his first campaign in England but City were too often undermined by basic failings, individual errors.

Thierry Ambrose, one of the clubs young hopefuls now on loan at NAC Breda, is another unlikely voice to providea peek into Citys intensely private se sions, highlighting how Guardiola's constant quest for perfection has paid dividends.

"With Pep it's all Deion Sanders Jerseys about po se sion, po se sion, po se sion and if you lose a stupid ball at two or threemetres, he will stop the training for five or 10 minutes, Ambrose said recently.

He will talk about the pa s and say, Your foot support must be like that, you must see the game before you receive the ball' and really he will stop the training for 10 minutes. After that, you don't want to lose the ball any more.

This is how Guardiola has always been, and we know this not just because many of his former players have relayed the same story, but also because a video surfaced on Twitter last week, highlighting this very approach during his early days at Barcelona B.

Brilliant footage about the DETAILS that Pep Guardiola believes since FCB 2007 - City 2017.Body orientation, information, 3rd man concept."Cruyff once told me one detail: When you have the ball, the first thing YOU MUST DO is TO LOOK AS FAR AS YOU CAN"

You could not evensay the training se sion was at walking pace the players were standing completely still, listening to the Catalan (looking considerably younger than he does now)explaining fields of vision and how to position yourself when you get the ball just as Ambrose said a matter of weeks ago.

It is the exact same thing he has been telling his City players, and notably Raheem Sterling. At the back end of 2017, a video (incidentally tagged onto the end of the one above), showed Guardiola telling the England man how to position himself when receiving the ball. The very next day, Sterling put it into practice in a Champions League game againstFeyenoord, latching on to Ilkay Gundogans pa s to score a late winner.

I would be controlling it with the outside of my foot, slowing the ball down, Sterling said while on England duty recently.Hes telling you to get to the left-back quicker. He brings you back to what you used to do with the Under-8s, open your body up, gets the rhythm going Dallas Cowboys Jerseys again.

Its simple stuff, stuff I already know. When youre playing a game, you probably dont pick up on it.

Sterling has scored a career high 22goals this season, many of them one-touch finishes, highlighting that he is one of the many City players who knows exactly what is required of him.

And reasons like that are why Guardiola felt comfortable sending his side out for the game against Watford at the start of the yearwith no instructions whatsoever. They were told to work it out for themselves. They scored after 38 seconds. It was Sterling with another tap-in, finishing another well-crafted move.

It is a bonus, of course, that most of last summers new signingshave picked up Guardiolas methods so quickly, and that they did not need a one-season bedding in period.

The signing of Ederson, a largely unheard of 23-year-old Brazilian, has proven to be a masterstroke. The youngster is everything Guardiola wanted Ezekiel Elliott T Shirts needed from Claudio Bravo; his distribution is so good and so varied that City have so many more weapons in their arsenal. Whether Ederson goes short or long, the opposition dont know whats coming.

And then theres Kyle Walker, who best sums up the difference in quality between Guardiola'sfirst and second seasons. He is everything Guardiola wants in a full-back, and a considerable upgrade on the ageing Pablo Zabaleta and Bacary Sagna, who so clearly struggled with what was being demanded of them.

In terms of the supporting cast, Bernardo Silva appears to be growing into his City career, whereas Nolito (remember him?) quickly grew out of it.

But the fortunes of Walkers fellowfull-back arrival, Benjamin Mendy, highlight that Citys succe s is not just about the quality of player on the team sheet, or the amount of money spent.

Mendy had made a fine start to his City career, bombing down the left and putting in cro ses NFL Dallas Cowboys Jerseys ofstunning accuracy, and with the Frenchman in the side Guardiola found a way to play Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus together. In fact, with those two and Sterling on the team-sheet, City were playing with three No.9s. The 6-0 win at Watford, a display of utter domination, suggested this was the way to go.

So, Mendys injuryrepresented something of a worst-case scenario for City. They had boug