PEP Guardiola reiterated it clearly on Friday, ahead of today’s clash with Southampton.

It is four games without a win at Manchester City following the drubbing at Barcelona in midweek. Asked about his style of play and specifically the obsessive build-up from the back he said, very clearly, that he does it because he believes it is the best way to win games.

“I look at the situation, I look at the players, I look at the opponent, I look at the alternative ways of playing,” he said. “And if I choose this way, it’s because I think it’s the best way. I’ve won 21 trophies in seven years doing it like this.”

It may seem obvious, but it’s worth repeating. Guardiola isn’t the way he is because he’s wedded to some kind of utopian concept of how football should be played. He is like this because he believes this is the best way to get the best possible ratio of goals conceded to goals scored, which is what winning is all about.

When he drops arguably his best player, Sergio Aguero, for a big European tie at the Camp Nou, when he banishes Yaya Toure into oblivion, when he doesn’t rush to bring back his captain Vincent Kompany, when he insists on his keeper, Claudio Bravo, playing like Xavi a few yards from the goal, all of this is meant to help City win games.

Not everybody, among those who criticised him following the 4-0 hammering away to Barcelona, seems to understand this.

They point to things that seem obvious and can only conclude that he’s trying to be “too clever”. And, sure, to most of us, mixing up the short-passing build-up with the odd accurate ball over the top to Aguero or Raheem Sterling – two of the quickest guys around – would seem to make sense. It would make the opposition think twice about pressing too high and it might actually generate chances at the other end.

If Kompany is fit, and it remains an “if”, you would imagine that when Guardiola opts for a back three, he makes more sense than Gael Clichy. Toure’s work-rate may be questioned but when it comes to short-passing and possession, he’s a better option than guys like Fernando.

And yet, with Guardiola, you have to take the leap of faith. You either embrace what he does, even if you don’t fully understand it rationally, or you don’t. It’s an almost religious experience.

Where he falls a little flat though is when he points to his past as evidence that this approach works. Because anyone who has followed his career will tell you that there are stark differences between City today and his Bayern and Barcelona sides. Those teams, especially the former, did not disdain the quick vertical ball from deep for a pacy forward. Their keepers, while good on the ball, did not challenge pressing opponents to games of “monkey in the middle” the way Bravo does.

The fact is, Guardiola’s mantra has evolved too. And that’s fine. But that being the case, you can’t cite past success as evidence that present methods necessarily work.

LOSE on his return to Stamford Bridge today, and Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United could well be eight points off the pace in the Premier League after nine games.

If that sounds rather poor, that’s because it is. Last season, they were just two points off the top of the table at this stage. Yet compare it to the two seasons before, 10 back under Louis Van Gaal, eight back with David Moyes, and it’s about par.

No United fan wants to think of the Moyes-Van Gaal era as the new normal, but neither does Mourinho.

Maybe that’s why in many ways it was a welcome thing that the build-up to this game was all about Mourinho and his return to Stamford Bridge, rather than all the other Old Trafford subplots. He gave the media a headline and, for 48 hours at least, that became the dominant theme.

Mourinho is probably being truthful when he says he does not care what reception he gets from the Stamford Bridge crowd. Not because he doesn’t care about them – he’s always quick to say how he never speaks ill of his former clubs and, besides, he’s been back to Chelsea as an opponent once before, with Inter – but rather because he’s a professional and he’ll be focused on the game.

And yet he likely knows that in the Premier League, narrative matters as much as fact. His successor, Antonio Conte, has pretty much the same crew as Mourinho, bar N’Golo Kante, Marcos Alonso and a couple guys the Special One did not want or rate: Victor Moses and David Luiz. He also knows Chelsea finished 16 points and five places behind the Manchester United side he inherited. And that it wasn’t Chelsea who went on a £150 million spree in the summer, it was his club.

Some might conclude all of this points to a safety-first approach from the Special One, much like last Monday at Anfield, with Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford turned into auxiliary full-backs. A point away against Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool was deemed more important and it was mission accomplished.

It’s not clear though that a similar approach at Stamford Bridge makes sense. A dour, bolt-the-door display will only reinforce the notion letting him go was the right decision by Chelsea (and, for all his protestations to the opposite, he does care). It would also send a broader message: When facing his peers – Guardiola, Klopp, Conte – this is the only way Mourinho can play right now.

This is one game where Mourinho may well be better off rolling the dice and going for it, where performance may well matter more than result.