Guardiola suffers as City suffer
It was etched all over Pep Guardiola’s face. Literally. And his forehead.
In his post-match presser after Man City’s latest disappointment – a 3-3 UEFA Champions League draw against Feyenoord – the Man City manager addressed the waiting press with a visible scratch on his nose and head.
uncomfortable viewing
It made for uncomfortable viewing and when asked by a journalist about said scratches, Guardiola’s response was surprisingly candid: “It’s from my finger, yes, my nail. I was aiming to hurt myself.”
While the implications of Guardiola’s words suggest Man City’s medical staff may wish to check in on the Spaniard and gauge his mental health, it does also offer a snapshot into the current state of the club.
And get this. City, which started the season as odds-on favorites to win the EPL, are now as low as +600 to be relegated! To win the EPL, they are now third favorites at +400.
Chaos behind the scenes
From the outside looking in, it’s hard to imagine anything other than alarm and chaos reigning behind the scenes at City. This is a club that is used to winning – not just games of football, but trophies. And not just the odd one.
But Tuesday night’s draw at the Etihad meant that the Citizens have now gone six games without a win; the previous five all ended up in defeat.
And to add to the surreal nature of this bizarre run of form, last night’s game is one City should have won comfortably. After 53 minutes, they were leading 3-0.
Two goals from Erling Haaland and another by İlkay Gündoğann inside the opening 53 minutes gave them what appeared to be a match-winning lead. But in a most un-Man City-like display of defending they conceded three in the space of just 15 second-half minutes.
The equalizer, which came in the 89th minute, caused scenes of celebration among the traveling Dutch fans but desolation among the City players, whose last win was against Southampton on October 26. Not since the 2005-06 season, under the management of Stuart Pearce, have they suffered such a losing streak.
Dominant for a decade
It is a run of form that, by their very exacting standards, is simply unheard of. A club that, over the last decade, has completely dominated English soccer and has threatened to do the same in Europe.
Their success in that period has completely rewritten English football history. In 2018-19, they became the first men’s team to win the domestic treble of the league, FA Cup and League Cup, and in 2023, they became only the second English club to win the continental treble of UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, and Club World Cup.
consternation in the blue half of Manchester
All of which makes the current slump even more surprising. And it’s not just the defeats themselves that have caused such consternation in the blue half of Manchester, but the manner of those defeats.
Among them were two defeats by Tottenham Hotspur – the first a narrow 2-1 away defeat in the EFL Cup but more recently, on November 23, a 4-0 humiliation at the Etihad. And it was the latter that started the alarm bells ringing around the Etihad. By the end of the Spurs game there had been an evacuation by City fans and on Tuesday night, the stadium exploded into a chorus of boos.
Two more years for Guardiola
This is a new experience for Guardiola who, since his arrival in English soccer in 2016, has pretty much enjoyed wall-to-wall success with City. Before he arrived in Manchester, he had experienced very much the same at Barcelona and then Bayern Munich, and at no stage of his managerial career has he been under the level of scrutiny that he is now.
Ironically, this comes at a time when the Spaniard has committed his future to City for another two seasons, but the pressure is clear and was evident in the distressing post-match scenes described at the start of this piece.
Prior to their recent grim run, Guardiola had never even lost four games but that ended when Brighton beat them 2-1 just before the recent international break.
If Guardiola was hoping the international break would give his squad a chance to reset, that was quickly blown out of the water by the Tottenham debacle and was followed by Tuesday night’s heartbreaking draw with Feyenoord.
More suffering at Anfield?
This weekend, City makes the short trip to Liverpool to face the EPL leaders, where defeat would leave them 11 points behind the Reds; a position from which no club has ever won the league at this stage of the campaign.
So what has led to this? What is going wrong at the Etihad?
second-most valuable in world soccer
Well, the first thing to say is it has nothing to do with money – at least not directly. The multi-millions that Sheikh Mansour has poured into the club to make it the giant that it is today shows no sign of abating and, based on data from the Transfermarkt website, their squad is the second-most valuable in world soccer.
There are, however, clear problems with the squad’s balance and setup and they have badly missed the presence of Ballon d’Or winner Rodri in the center of their midfield.
Without him, the midfield balance is way off and, as Tottenham highlighted at the weekend, they can be far too easy to play through without him sitting just in front of their back-four.
As a result, they are conceding too many goals. To date, in the EPL they conceded 17 goals – the same amount as 19th-place Crystal Palace and nine more than EPL leaders Liverpool.
Over-reliance on Haaland
And they also have problems in attack – a problem unrelated to Rodri’s absence. Against Spurs over the weekend, they failed to score despite registering 23 shots, and their record-breaking scorer, Erling Haaland, has had a much less productive season in front of goal.
The Norwegian has scored just twice in his last seven EPL outings, which has highlighted their reliance on him. To put this in some perspective, Haaland has had 37 shots in the EPL this season with left-back Joško Gvardiol as City’s next highest with just seven. While it’s impossible to have a like-for-like back-up for a goal scorer as phenomenal as Haaland, the lack of other attacking threats has hit City hard.
When Guardiola penned his new deal last week, it was reported had been given assurances around transfer budgets and told he would be significantly backed in the upcoming transfer window. This hinted at a significant rebuild although when questioned about it, the Spaniard denied the need for a major clear-out.
Big decisions for Pep
The reality is though that it is an aging squad and, whether or not Guardiola believes it, it does have a higher-than-average number of key players in their thirties. No fewer than seven are 30 or older with only Mateo Kovacic, of those seven, contracted to play for City beyond 2026.
With Guardiola’s new deal ending in 2027, he has some major decisions just around the corner over the futures of some of his key players – most of whom have been instrumental to their success over the last few seasons.
underwhelming seasons
Kyle Walker, Kevin de Bruyne, and Bernardo Silva are among that group of players and all have had fairly underwhelming seasons to date due to a mixture of poor form and injuries.
But if a major overhaul of the squad is needed and City can stay within the EPL’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), then money will never be the problem.
Big-spending City
Since Sheikh Mansour took control of Man City in 2008, they have been renowned for their huge spending. At last count, their total expenditure under Mansour stands at $3.02bn, with only Chelsea having spent more in that same period.
They have, however, been relatively modest in their spending in recent seasons, probably due to the need to at least show some recognition of PSR. Since the start of the 2022-23 season, their spend of $464m is the ninth highest in the world, but their net spend of just $15.8m ranks them down at 81st.
But therein lies part of the problem. Their erratic spending patterns – multi-millions in the early Mansour years, modest spending in recent years – are almost certainly related to their ongoing problems with soccer’s authorities.
Back in February 2020, UEFA found City in breach of their Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules after deciding they had falsely inflated sponsorship sums between 2012 and 2016. As a result, they were given a two-year ban – which they successfully appealed – and were handed a $33m fine.
115 and counting
But it didn’t end there. In early 2024, the EPL announced that it was charging Man City with no fewer than 115 offenses, ranging from failing to provide the EPL with accurate financial information to failing to cooperate with EPL investigations.
City refuted the allegations, but the trial has been ongoing since September and isn’t expected to be completed until mid-December. While it is not directly related to matters on the soccer field, the implications are clear and Guardiola is often questioned on the potential impacts if City is found guilty of some or all of the charges.
This, in itself, has cast a shadow over the club and it may be no coincidence that their dramatic downturn in form has coincided directly with the court case. Worryingly for City, its outcome isn’t expected to be announced until March 2024.
Problems on and off the pitch
So, all in all, City is a club in crisis, both on and off the pitch. Sheikh Mansour’s billions may have elevated the club to a level they once dreamed of and to trophies beyond their wildest dreams, but at what cost?
the problem of an aging squad
Even if Guardiola can perform his usual miracle of transforming a stuttering team into a machine that wins the EPL and other trophies, the problem of an aging squad and soccer’s court case of the decade remains.
So, an interesting few weeks and months await for Man City fans. Which way will it go? And what will Manchester City FC look like in 12 months?