daniel chigunwe
WATCHING Pep Guardiola scratching his head live on television on Tuesday night was the ultimate sign of a manager at his wits’ end.
Yes, the Spanish sorcerer was only scraping his head and face.
You didn’t have to be Monty Python’s Black Knight to declare the cut on his nose “only a flesh wound”.
But for a Guardiola side to throw away a three goal lead at HOME inside the final few minutes demonstrated the epic scale of City’s decline and fall.
Even a few weeks ago, despite the ongoing off field cloud of the “115” alleged financial rules breaches that is being heard in a central London venue, City were not far from their customary relentless selves.
Five straight defeats, including three in the Prem, were capped off by that 4-0 home thumping by Spurs on Saturday — a game that was supposed to be a celebration of the manager signing his new two-year deal.
And Guardiola’s admissions that his team are “fragile” and “not stable”, joking that he wanted to “hurt himself” and his general bearing demonstrated just how much has gone wrong, so quickly.
Sun Sport looks at the key issues that must be addressed.
No Rodri, no Party
The ovation the City fans gave the Spain midfielder as he raised his Ballon d’Or trophy before the Tottenham trauma told its own story.
The reality is that Rodri’s absence has left a hole that nobody in the City squad can fill on their own.
Not Mateo Kovacic — currently on the missing list — or John Stones, or Rico Lewis. Nobody.
Instead of a solid defensive screen, City have begun to represent a farmer’s stile. A bit of legwork and you are over the top.
It has been an open invitation for teams that have a desire to hurt City — as Spurs, Bournemouth, Brighton, Sporting and now Feyenoord have shown. Guardiola has never been shy about his desire to reinvent football, time and again.
Perhaps, though, he has to ponder adding to the defensive security of his side by a change of shape.
If he has not got one player to do the Rodri role, maybe he needs two in there?
Bring up the bodies
Guardiola has not hidden how much he has been hurt by the injury crisis that started before the season kicked off.
Oscar Bobb had been earmarked for a key role this term but the Norwegian broke his leg in August and will not return until at least February.
Then came Rodri’s season-ending cruciate injury against Arsenal.
Kevin de Bruyne and Jack Grealish have made just four Prem starts out of 12 games, Stones three, Nathan Ake only one.
And with things already teetering, the calf injury that forced Ruben Dias off after 45 minutes of the Carabao Cup defeat at Tottenham feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back.
City have conceded 15 goals in the last five games. Dias is the lynchpin of the back line. It’s not rocket science.
LEGS GONE
Alan Hansen was famously wrong when he declared “you don’t win anything with kids”.
But maybe what we are seeing with Pep’s side is that the Premier League is no country for old men. Six of City’s outfield squad are now 30-somethings — and it is starting to look that way, too.
Timo Werner happily accepting the invitation to run legs off Kyle Walker to set up Tottenham’s fourth at the weekend was symbolic of the 34-year-old’s sudden physical limitations.
Walker’s pace has always been his super-power. He looks like he has now swallowed Kryptonite.
Many City fans celebrated Ilkay Gundogan’s return in the summer after his unhappy year at Barcelona but those cheers have stalled. —Sun.
Online Reporter