With Jurgen Klopp gone, that team that look best placed to challenge Manchester City are the one led by Pep Guardiola's former assistant.

Mikel Arteta has his own style and play but both his tactics and management style are in step with what he saw first-hand with Guardiola at the Etihad. From sacrificing individual players for the style of the team or to underline the collective over any dressing room ego, innovative motivational approaches before games and the use first of inverted full-backs and then of centre-backs out wide, Arsenal have taken from the City playbook to get closer to them.

Liverpool under Klopp were a different beast, and one that Guardiola never fully managed to tame in games even if he almost always got the better of them over a 38-game league campaign. Arne Slot will have his own ideas about the squad at Anfield but has previous described watching City as the "ultimate joy in football" and the new elite development coach at Liverpool, Aaron Briggs, was wanted by Arteta at Arsenal after impressing as a first team analyst at City.

United too can claim to have an inside track on City operations, having hired COO Omar Berrada and former academy director Jason Wilcox this year as the new investors at Old Trafford look to close the chasm that has opened up between the two neighbours. There were reports that WIlcox had a say in how United approached the FA Cup Final tactically, having spent years working on the City system under Guardiola and Txiki Begiristain.

Then there is Chelsea, who are copying the Arsenal model of hiring a former Guardiola assistant to get them challenging for titles again. Enzo Maresca's first interview with the club website remarkably managed not to mention the influence of the City boss or Maresca's contribution to City winning the Treble, but they now have even more experience of the Blues in addition to former head of academy recruitment Joe Shields and others who have made the trip.

Guardiola insists that success cannot be copied and pasted, but taking important pieces of the City jigsaw has lifted Arsenal up to the second best team in England. When the new Premier League campaign gets underway, City need to understand that their rivals have never been better placed to nullify them and beat them given the way the champions now feature more prominently on radars.

As he gears up for another year, Guardiola can expect another strong challenge from Arsenal but also extra scrutiny from all of the teams who have consciously brought in experience of what City do and who they are. Another league title should be harder than any before it to achieve.