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LONDON. — Readers of a certain age will know the scene. George Best spreadeagled on a hotel bed next to a barely-clad Miss World, covered by a duvet of £50 notes.
In comes the bell boy. “George, where did it all go wrong?”
In a slightly less colourful context, think Pep Guardiola.
Three Spanish La Liga football titles, three German Bundesliga titles, two English Premier League titles, two Champions League titles, two Spanish Cups, an FA Cup, two League Cups, three UEFA Super Cups, three Club World Cups, two German Cups.
The purveyor of the most beautiful brand of football the modern-day fan has seen.
Now here is, 22 points behind Liverpool and a long queue forming to ask where it has all gone wrong.
Never mind the second place standing in the English Premier League, a spot in the Carabao Cup final, a fifth round slot in the FA Cup, a Champions League knockout tie against Real Madrid looming and his side top of the domestic goalscoring charts.
Where did it all go wrong, Pep?
Here he is now. 139 games as a Premier League manager, lost only 18, scored 346 goals.
Where did it all go wrong, Pep?
He has been found out, say a variety of pundits.
Found out for what? Playing the game the way it should be played?
Attacking? Wanting the ball? Passing? Moving forward at all costs?
“I sit there and I think: ‘He (Pep) is fortunate to get away with it,” Paul Merson said in his Sky Sports column.
It is hard to know exactly what Guardiola is getting away with.
Quite clearly, he and the club’s recruitment department made a misjudgment when not bolstering their central defensive options in the summer.
Soon after the season started, it was pretty obvious a defence of their title was unlikely, considering their options at the back.
Still, you probably would not have predicted six defeats in 25 Premier League matches.
Yet in only one of those six losses have they had less possession and attempts on goal than the opposition and that was when they were reduced to 10 men by Ederson’s 12th minute sending-off at Wolves.
Manchester City have found different ways to lose games in the same way Liverpool have found different ways to win games.
Maybe that explains the rather curious bookmakers’ odds for the Champions League, which have City as favourites to win the competition.
City face Real in the round of 16 with Zinedine Zidane’s team top of La Liga and 13 points ahead of sixth-placed Atletico Madrid, Liverpool’s opponents.
Leaving aside the respective challenges they face in the first knockout stage, bookies clearly feel the yawning Premier League points gap is not reflective of the gap in quality.
They are probably right but there IS a sizeable gap, it is there in the numbers.
And regardless of what happens in the Champions League and domestic cup competitions, Liverpool’s Premier League procession should be incentive enough for Guardiola to honour the last season of his contract, which ends in the summer of 2021, with renewed vigour.
Remember his first season in England when a third-placed finish and 78-point total (pretty much what City are on course for this time around) had the experts flocking to say the Pep way could not work in the Premier League?
That only made him redouble his efforts and philosophies and he will surely want to do the same again.
Guardiola has not been found out but knocking this wonderful Liverpool team off their perch would rank as one of his finest achievements.
And that is why, contrary to some doubters, you will be seeing Guardiola on these shores for some time to come. — The Mirror
Online Reporter