Joe Hart on Manchester City's Transition After Guardiola

Joe Hart knows what it feels like when the music stops at Manchester City.

He was there when the club first muscled its way to the top of English football, when titles in 2011-12 and 2013-14 made City the new force to fear. He also knows how hard it is to stay there. That is why his warning, as the Premier League season looms into view, lands with a bit more weight than most.

Life after Pep – and the weight on Maresca

Pep Guardiola has gone. Ten years, a stack of trophies, and a standard of football that turned City into a machine. Now it is Enzo Maresca’s turn to walk into the Etihad and try to keep the whole thing from creaking.

Hart does not believe the real pressure will come from inside the building.

"I think the club isn't heaping massive expectation on this season," he told BBC Radio 5 Live's Monday Night Club. "I think they still believe that they've got the team and they've got the quality to challenge."

City’s hierarchy, Hart argues, understand exactly what they are walking into: a seismic transition, after an era that may never be repeated.

"Internally, I think they're intelligent enough as a business to understand that what's going on right now is going to be difficult," he said. The message from the boardroom, in his eyes, will be measured. The noise from outside? Anything but.

"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."

The timing is awkward. City have already taken a punch to the ribs, a 3-0 Community Shield defeat to Arsenal in Cardiff on Sunday, the kind of scoreline that instantly feeds the narrative of a champion in flux.

A new-look City in the market

While Guardiola’s departure dominates the storyline, City’s squad is shifting beneath Maresca’s feet.

The club briefly broke 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 very top level. At the same time, the spine that defined City’s dominance is under threat.

Spain’s World Cup Golden Ball winner Rodri looks likely to leave for Barcelona, stripping City of the metronome who has controlled their biggest games. Talks are under way to bring in Morocco’s 18-year-old Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille for £85.6m, a bold move for the future, but a very different profile to the man he could end up replacing.

On top of that, City still want Chelsea’s Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez. It is not a rebuild in the traditional sense, but it is a serious rewire of a team that had become almost automatic.

Hart’s sense is that the club will still aim high.

"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."

The expectations from the outside world, though, will not soften just because Guardiola has walked away. Maresca inherits a dynasty. Everyone will want to see whether he can hold it together.

Arsenal’s new problem: staying on top

While City wrestle with the post-Pep era, Arsenal now face a different kind of test.

Mikel Arteta’s side have just climbed the mountain. Now they have to stay there. Hart, who twice failed to defend a Premier League crown with City, knows exactly how brutal that can be.

Recalling those title-winning seasons in 2011-12 and 2013-14, he admitted he thought he had cracked it.

"I was walking on water at that time. I actually thought I was 'that guy'," he said.

Football did what football always does. It snapped him back to reality.

"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 storm heading Arsenal’s way now. Every dropped point feels heavier. Every wobble grows louder. Every opponent raises their game.

"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."

City know this cycle well. Four titles in a row from 2020-21 to 2023-24 set a standard that even they have not managed to maintain over the past two seasons. Arsenal are about to find out what that grind really feels like.

Hart’s final reflection cuts to the heart of the coming campaign.

"It's ironic that getting to the top is the easy thing, it really is."

For Maresca trying to replace a legend, and for Arsenal trying to live like one, that might be the defining truth of the season.