Joe Hart on Post-Pep City and Arsenal's New Reality

Manchester City are starting a season without Pep Guardiola for the first time in a decade. Arsenal are trying to defend a Premier League title for the first time under Mikel Arteta. Chelsea may be about to hand the keys to Xabi Alonso. The league hasn’t even kicked off and the storylines are already loaded.

On BBC Radio 5 Live’s Monday Night Club, former City and England goalkeeper Joe Hart cut through the noise. He knows what it looks like from the inside when a superclub tries to stay on top – and how quickly that shine can fade.

Maresca, the shadow of Pep and the outside noise

Enzo Maresca walks into the Etihad with Guardiola’s silhouette looming over everything. Ten years, a stack of trophies, a defined way of playing – that’s the inheritance. Hart, who won two titles under previous regimes, doesn’t think the real pressure is coming from the boardroom.

“I think the club isn't heaping massive expectation on this season,” he said. City, in his view, still believe the squad is good enough to compete on every front, but the tone internally has shifted. “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.”

Outside? That’s different. “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.”

And there are already early questions. City were brushed aside 3-0 by Arsenal in the Community Shield in Cardiff on Sunday. Pre-season or not, a heavy defeat to the new champions is not the backdrop any new manager wants.

Off the pitch, the club have moved aggressively and awkwardly at the same time. They 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, Rodri – Spain’s World Cup Golden Ball winner and the brain of City’s midfield – looks likely to leave for Barcelona.

City are already working on the next phase. Morocco midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi, just 18, is in talks over an £85.6m move from Lille. The club also still want Chelsea’s Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez. It feels like a rebuild on the fly rather than a slow evolution.

Hart’s view is that the hierarchy understand the turbulence. “Internally, I think they're intelligent enough as a business to understand that what's going on right now is going to be difficult.” They’ve just come off an era of four straight titles from 2020-21 to 2023-24, then two seasons of just falling short. Maintaining that level without Guardiola is another challenge entirely.

Arsenal’s next test: staying there

While City adjust to life after Pep, Arsenal step into a new kind of pressure. They are no longer the hunters. They are the ones with the target on their back.

Hart knows that feeling. He won the league with City in 2011-12 and 2013-14. Both times, the title slipped away the following season.

“I was walking on water at that time,” he admitted. “I actually thought I was 'that guy'.” Then reality hit. “Football finds a way, really quickly, of showing you that you're not.”

For Hart, the problem isn’t that things go wrong – they always do over a long season. It’s what the badge of “champions” does to every setback. “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 where he sees Arsenal’s true examination coming. Every dropped point will feel heavier. Every wobble will be framed as a crisis. “It's really important how Arsenal are going to handle that,” he said.

He has faith in Arteta. “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.” The irony, as Hart put it, is brutal: “It's ironic that getting to the top is the easy thing, it really is.”

Alonso and Chelsea’s next big swing

While City and Arsenal wrestle with continuity and consistency, Chelsea could be about to roll the dice again. Xabi Alonso, one of the most coveted young coaches in Europe, is being linked with the job.

City are trying to stay City without Guardiola. Arsenal are trying to prove last season wasn’t a peak. Chelsea might be about to start over yet again.

The season will answer all of it. But as Hart knows from experience, the hardest part isn’t climbing the mountain. It’s finding a way to live at the summit.