In 2009, Kidd, 66, went back to City, whom he had served as a player between 1976 and 1979, in the role of technical development manager, later becoming assistant to Roberto Mancini that year.
It will be Kidd who offers the continuity at first-team level when Guardiola arrives with his four staff who have formed his inner circle at Barcelona and now Bayern Munich. They comprise of Guardiola’s personal assistant, Manuel Estiarte, the former Olympic water-polo gold medal winner; coach Domenec Torrent; Carles Planchart, an analyst; and Lorenzo Buenaventura, the fitness coach.
Kidd also served under Pellegrini, whose other staff will follow the Chilean out of City. They are Rubén Cousillas Fuse, the Argentinian assistant who has worked with the current manager for most of his career; the goalkeeping coach, Xabier Mancisidor; and fitness coach Jose Cabello. Kidd has been able to give Pellegrini and his staff an insight into English football and its characters and it is anticipated he will do the same for Guardiola.
The new City manager is expected to slip into the club’s structure at the City Football Academy where Brian Marwood is the de facto technical director for all levels of the club beneath the first team. Nevertheless, the Spanish coach does like control of all parts of his club and will not tolerate at any level personalities he considers to be difficult or obstructive.
Although City have decided to make the announcement early, both they and Guardiola now want to keep that appointment low-key until the end of the season.
There remains the potential for both clubs to face each other in the Champions League and while the early announcement was not ideal, both Guardiola and City felt that it was the least worse way to deal with the uncertainty in the coming months.
While Guardiola does not begin officially until July, the club’s sporting director Txiki Begiristain is already working on signing the players that his new coach wants at City next season and that operation should be well advanced before he arrives.
- Telegraph