Pep Guardiola will bring a better brand of football to Manchester City next season, according to striker Roque Santa Cruz.
The Bayern Munich boss will take charge at the Etihad Stadium in July, having agreed a three-year deal to succeed incumbent Manuel Pellegrini.
City have won the Premier League and two League Cups under Pellegrini, while the Chilean has also guided them to the semi-finals of the Champions League this season for the first time in their history.
Yet Santa Cruz who spent eight years at Bayern before later joining City believes Guardiola s style will make a huge difference at City in the coming years.
I think City like to play good football, he told Omnisport. They have some great players.
I think they will value Guardiola s playing philosophy a lot. They ll keep evolving even more and they ll be even more competitive with him. I think we may see Manchester City playing much better football.
City s improved fortunes in Europe this season have been helped by the arrival of Kevin De Bruyne, who struck the crucial goal in the quarter-final win over Paris Saint-Germain to cap a superb first campaign back in England.
Santa Cruz, however, feels the strength of the collective at City has been far more important than the form of individuals.
I think he s going through a very good moment but I think that City are a team who don t depend on any individual player, said the Malaga striker. Sergio Aguero has scored a lot of goals, De Bruyne is playing great, and there are many more like Fernandinho who push the team and lead them.
As a group they are a very solid team, that s their strength.
Santa Cruz struggled to settle in a difficult spell in Manchester between 2009 and 2013, and he concedes it was disappointing to be hampered by injuries during a time of huge upheaval at the club following Sheikh Mansour s takeover in 2008.
I have some mixed memories, said the 34-year-old. I arrived at a moment when there were a lot of changes at the club, the Sheikh had just bought the club and there were a lot of great new players.
I was glad to be part of that new project. Then I started with a lot of injuries, I couldn t find my way of playing or enough room to play. It was hard for me.
But, of course, having been there, having been a part of the great group of players that was there, was very emotional. I had a great time there. It was only that, because of the injuries, I couldn t play a lot or be at the level that I wanted to be at.
