Brian Barry-Murphy: I’ve coached with Pep Guardiola & in the EFL - now I’m ready for my next challenge

Knowing when to call it a day, when to walk away at the opportune moment, is no small feat.

In football it feels almost impossible. Few get to write their own script, to lap up the plaudits and exit with the audience still wanting more.

It’s a subject that feels particularly pertinent at Manchester City, where Pep Guardiola is considering his future at the start of a ninth season. Six Premier League titles, a Champions League triumph, the treble in 2023 and a string of mind-boggling records along the way, Guardiola will receive a hero’s exit when the time comes. He’ll be allowed to plan his farewell on his terms.

It’s a scenario which is familiar to Brian Barry-Murphy, who worked under the City manager for three years before opting to move on last summer. The timing just felt right for the Irishman.

“I always wondered what a break looked like,” Barry-Murphy told Manchester World in an exclusive interview, his first since leaving City two months ago.

“I have three young daughters, almost three and four, while my eldest is 12, so it’s been a hectic summer for me. But professionally, I wanted to just make a conscious decision, for myself as much as anyone else, that I was moving on to my next stage. I wanted to make it clear and to see what is available for me in the immediate future.

Barry-Murphy replaced Enzo Maresaca as the head coach of City’s Elite Development Squad (EDS), known in most circles as the Under-21s, in 2021 and played an active role in the development of top talents such as Rico Lewis, Cole Palmer and Romeo Lavia, among others.

“To see them all doing so well gives me real pride,” he said, a smile poking through his bearded face. They were as talented as any group in the world. They were unstoppable when they played as a team,” he reflected.

But his role was much more than just a B-team coach; he worked with Guardiola on a daily basis and helped identify youngsters ready to assist with first-team drills. 

“It has been the most amazing experience of my life, mainly because of him and the calibre of players that I worked with. We were present almost every day to see what he was doing and to assist him with what he wanted,” explained the man who first introduced Oscar Bobb to the first-team picture.

Barry-Murphy led the EDS to successive league titles in the first two years, loved working with the country’s top young talents and described the pristine set-up at City as ‘like Disneyland’. It begs the question - why leave?

“We all think we’re good at what we do but at some point you’ve got to just go and show it,” he explained, spelling out his aims of claiming the no.1 job elsewhere.

“I spend my life working with players asking them to show courage but if the guy saying it won’t back it up by doing it himself, you end up being not who you say you are. It’s practice what you preach.

“You could easily stay for 10 years [at City] and I didn’t want that. I went there to improve and get better. I proved I could work with some of the best young players in the world. To put that to the test [elsewhere] you have to be brave and back yourself. That’s what I want to do.”

Where that next role is, the 46-year-old is setting no limits. He’s open to working almost anywhere, so long as the club’s values align with his. The level doesn’t matter, but the footballing principles do.

“To sum it up best, I want to find somewhere that gives me the exact same feeling as when I joined Man City. I had this feeling that it was the perfect place for me to be at that stage of my career based on what I’d done and where I wanted to go.

“I’ve never had a career map. I’ve been more in the moment and focused on enjoying myself and improving all the time. I want to work at a club that puts a team together in the way I want to play. I want to see something that aligns with my values and my way of playing, which I know now more than ever can produce a winning brand of football. I feel I proved that in my three years at City.”

From Spotland to Disneyland

Barry-Murphy’s journey to City was far from conventional. After an impressive playing career in the Football League - that included six years at Bury and eight with Rochadale - he was appointed player-coach at the latter, before replacing Keith Hill as permanent manager in 2019.

“I didn’t plan on being a manager. Keith Hill was my friend and he got sacked,” the former midfielder reflected. “I was thrown in at the deep end and had to learn what it was like. 

“You go from being sat alongside your friends to managing them and giving them contracts. It was quite the baptism of a fire at a club of that size because you have to manage so many things. It was very beneficial but a very tough job.”

Under the Corkman, Rochdale became renowned as one of the division’s most attractive sides. A goal at Southend United in August 2019 best demonstrates this, when a 16-pass move over 41 seconds resulted in an early goal-of-the-season contender.

After avoiding the drop two seasons in a row, relegation ultimately claimed Rochdale in 2021, with Barry-Murphy feeling it was the right time to walk away. His next move surprised many in the game when he opted to leave senior football and take up a role coaching City’s youngsters.

“When I went from first-team football back into youth football, a lot of people in the game thought I was mad. And it was the same leaving Man City, it had to feel natural. I think you have to be true to yourself.”

Barry-Murphy could have stayed on at City in a role that would have seen him work closely with Txiki Begiristain, who he described as the world’s best director of football. There was interest from elsewhere in his last 12 months at the club, but he wanted to honour his contract and the commitment to the players. Barry-Murphy ultimately left with everyone’s blessings and best wishes.

“Pep and Txiki told me I was ready to go. Pep, in particular, gave me really good clarity and really good advice. He thanked me for what I’d done for the club, for him.”

Barry-Murphy can include himself in a distinguished group of coaches - that includes the current managers of Chelsea, Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Barcelona - who have been fortunate enough to study Guardiola’s practices. Studying under the game's greatest coach has provided an education like no other.

“Whatever you think of him, he’s better than that,” the former City coach sums up succinctly. “I always knew what I wanted to do as a young coach but it got muddled. What Pep did was to show you a way of thinking that was so simple and clear. 

“He shows you how to do it but you have to be willing to see it and how obsessed with dedication, repetition and perfection he is. If you see that, he gives players a way of working that they just thrive under because they see the benefits of it on a Saturday.”

In Barry-Murphy’s eye, it’s Guardiola’s ability to strip things back to their purest form that makes him such a unique figure. Repetition, rhythm and ingrained patterns are the route cause of the elite City displays seen on a weekly basis. Eventually it feels like second nature to the players.

“Pep is obsessive in his preparation for games. He prepares for a Carabao Cup game against a League One opposition in the same manner that he would for Real Madrid,” he said. “That’s not just me saying that, that’s how it is. It’s factual.

“He has an aura about him where he can make you feel so valued by one comment and you want to please him, so you give him everything. That makes you want to run more than anyone else and he believes that’s so important.

“Above all else, he convinces players of the value of playing together and creates this amazing team spirit. They’re so lauded for their skill level, but the mentality of the group is incredible. The way they run and make movements in the final third is overlooked. I think it’s overlooked because it’s quite simple, but the simplicity is beautiful.”

Applying Guardiola’s methods with a twist

For Barry-Murphy, coaching is in the blood. His father, a GAA legend in Ireland, led Cork to an All-Ireland Hurling Championship in 1999. Jimmy Barry-Murphy is considered one of the GAA’s greatest, switching between Gaelic football and hurling, his medal collection could rival Guardiola’s.

“I really grew up in the spotlight,” explained the younger Barry-Murphy, one of four siblings. “I learnt a lot from my father by watching him. When he was managing I watched a lot of how he trained and certain things that were very important to him. Those things stick with you.”

Now in his mid-40s, there are plenty of experiences to draw on. From watching his father, playing in the Football League, plying his trade at Rochdale and honing his skills at world football’s preeminent club.

He feels more equipped to manage a side now, and has a greater understanding of what his football philosophies and ideas look like. Incorporating talented youngsters into his side is central to his beliefs.

But that’s not just regurgitating Guardiola’s methods: “You have to be yourself. I’ve always felt slightly different [from Guardiola] because of where I’ve come from. 

“I’m not afraid to say it, I played in the lower leagues and had to be flexible in certain situations. I still believed in a way of playing that was predominately possession-based but when I was a younger I was obsessed with developing a style that made the players so comfortable in possession.

“When I went to Man City I was able to adapt that by making the attacking threat much more potent by giving the ball to Palmer or Bobb really quickly in the final third and understanding what it looks like for those players to have the opportunity to attack effectively and quickly. My philosophy now is to attack in whatever is the most efficient way possible.”

The question now is which club will be the beneficiaries of that model? Barry-Murphy is ruling nothing out and has already held talks with one Championship club since he left City, although, despite media links, that wasn’t the recent vacancy at Deepdale.

“Honestly, I never spoke to anybody at Preston, ever,” he revealed, adding he hasn’t set a Championship role as his target. “I’m dead against saying that I want to go here or there. I don’t want to label myself.

“I had interest from Europe and wouldn’t rule that out. But my clear objective is that it has to align with how I think a club should work and play football.”

Whatever happens next, Barry-Murphy’s unique path to the top will appeal to plenty of prospective chairmen, who, should they take a gamble on the Irishman, could find themselves inheriting one of the game’s most promising managers.