Pep Guardiola sat down after beating the modern-day Newcastle United before revealing his determination to avoid emulating the Magpies of yesteryear.
Some things don’t change in the Premier League and, just like Keegan, Guardiola has Manchester United breathing down his neck and the gap between the leaders and the Red Devils is identical to the scene back in 1995/96.
Newcastle fans would love to see their side even involved in a title fight these days, but under Mike Ashley, that is highly unlikely to happen with his current stance on recruitment.
A packed Press conference watched on after City’s 3-1 win at the Etihad, and Guardiola made reference to that heartbreaking campaign back in 1996.
He said: “I recently read that Newcastle once dropped a 12-point advantage to Man United and Man United won the league.
“For the last two months, all I have heard is the Premier League is all done.
“Then you lose one game.
“But I said many times that what happened at Anfield would happen, we’d lose.
“The important thing has been the reaction and what we have to do now.
“We still have 42 points to play for.
“We have 14 games to play.
“It’s a lot to play and there will be difficult games to play like Saturday and Liverpool last week.
“My team is still there and I don’t have the feeling we will give up.
“The team was quiet in the build-up to Newcastle and that means they are focused.
“I can imagine if we’d dropped points against Newcastle and we’d only be nine or 10 points clear people would talk.
“It is important that the personality in the team is there.”
Although, Guardiola knew his side had to earn their three points against the Magpies after Newcastle staged a late rally on Saturday night.
Rafa Benitez and Pep Guardiola (Image: Getty Images Europe)
He said: “It’s so complicated to attack 11 players when they defend so, so deep.
“You can’t deny it.
“You can just pay with one counter-attack on your goal, or a free-kick or throw-in. But we are learning.
“We’re learning to attack in this way (against ultra-defensive teams) and how to deal with it because of the counter-attack.
“We are able to work in two phases and that is important.”
Guardiola said that the defensive approach was something he’d grown used to in his career - but just like Keegan did in 1996 he vowed to keep on attacking.
He said: “The dream is to keep doing that but create more chances.
“But believe me in my career as a manager, at Barcelona and Bayern Munich as well, most teams defend like Newcastle.
“It’s not easy to attack them. But what do we concede?
“We analyse the result but also how many shots on target we concede (United actually managed four).
“When you concede 10 shots and you win you have to worry.
“We conceded one or two and how many chances did we create, a lot (City created nine shots on target).”
But Guardiola knows the reality is the more teams attack his side, the more opportunities his expensively assembled team will get.
He said: “What happened against Liverpool they pressed high and more teams might do that.
“Other teams defend so deep, like Southampton or West Ham.
“I’m not judging. I have never done that in the past.
“When an opponent faces you (in a defensive way) it’s how do you solve that?
“That is what pleases me the most.
“Attacking 10 players in the box with no space and finding the solutions in that.
“I have the feeling we are improving and that’s why I’m happy.”
Some of Newcastle’s players limped out of the Etihad Stadium knowing they’d given everything but emerged with nothing.
They must now recover for the FA Cup clash with Chelsea and an arguably more important game at home to Burnley in nine days time.
While Benitez was sweating about incoming transfers, Guardiola was ready to mull over making a few tweaks to his team to face Bristol City.
The charismatic former Barcelona boss was asked about rotation and simply replied: “Normally I don’t think about what I will do next until after my glass of red wine.
“After red wine and a little alcohol in my body, my focus is much better.
“After that, I will decide what is the best.
“We’re going there to play with the best team and win the final.”
Guardiola and Benitez are two of the game’s legendary managers, but both are dealing with very different problems right now.