One message that has been consistent from Pep Guardiola during Manchester City’s bad run is that he has full trust in his players.
Whenever he has been asked about the team’s issues on the pitch, things they could have done differently in previous transfer windows, or could do in future, his first port of call is to say that if he had all or most of his players available this season, they would not be in this mess.
There is a lot of truth in that but as City’s struggles have gone on and Guardiola has continued to back his men, some have held up that loyalty as one of the reasons for City’s poor run.
All of this was probably summed up ahead of the Brentford game, when he discussed City’s transfer policy and how things might have been different this season.
“In the summer the club thought about (signings) and I said: ‘No, I don’t want to make any signings,” he said at his press conference.
“I relied a lot on these guys and thought I can do it again. But after the injuries maybe we should have done it.”
And on Tuesday night, after City had looked to be closing out a morale-boosting if not perfect victory, only to throw it away late on, Guardiola did at least touch on the reality of the situation: they are lacking mobility and physicality in the midfield and, combined with issues in defence, they have chronic problems which may only be fixed in the transfer window.
He was asked about Phil Foden’s assertion that City were looking “leggy” in the final 20 minutes to which he replied: “We have a lot of absences that would give us that composure and physicality.
“Kova (Mateo Kovacic) comes from injury, Rodri is not there, Bernardo (Silva) is making an incredible effort, Gundogan is an attacking midfielder, so sometimes… yeah, we know that.”
Guardiola must know that those players do not have enough for City to play their best football and could no doubt speak about this at length with his coaching staff but, out of loyalty to the players who have served him so well, he is never likely to acknowledge too much when he speaks publicly.
He did touch on a couple of other issues as he discussed the good and bad of his team’s attempts to hold onto their lead at Brentford, though.
“Of course at 0-2 we have to close it, but to close it we don’t have specific players to defend a result in the box for a long amount of time,” he said, possibly another reference to the physicality of his side, as well as the absence of Ruben Dias and, for other reasons, Kyle Walker.
“We have to do it with the ball and have the ball and create and control there in the final third.”
One source of frustration among some fans is a perception that Guardiola has generally stuck with the same faces, despite these same problems.
That is true in some cases but not others. He clearly appreciates Bernardo’s efforts to pop up in all areas of the pitch and try to knit things together, but his praise for the Portuguese has not sat well with everybody because, at the very least, he has at times looked like he has needed a rest.
But it seems that Guardiola has recognised Gundogan and Walker’s limitations, even if Walker’s request to leave might be another reason why he has not started since the Manchester derby a month ago. Gundogan last started a Premier League game against Aston Villa on December 21.
Those two have struggled most and it must be said that their game time has suffered as a result, but even the decision to bring them on with 30 minutes to go against West Ham, once City had gone 4-0 up, was unpopular with some, and in fairness things did go south after that.
The James McAtee issue plays into this. Guardiola spoke in pre-season, and even in the past couple of weeks, about how he is good enough to play for City and yet since the poor run started with League Cup elimination at Spurs in October, and no matter how badly his midfield colleagues have struggled or been run into the ground, he has only started against Salford.
That is an unusual one and has led to more frustration with Guardiola, but whichever way you look at it, City are stuck in a loop because there are just not that many alternatives.
The manager has dropped Gundogan and Walker, but the replacements, McAtee aside, do not inspire confidence in the masses either: Matheus Nunes is a right-back now, apparently. Bernardo and Kovacic keep battling away in midfield because what else is there?
Kevin De Bruyne is being used when available and Foden is often stationed on the wing because Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku keep picking up injuries. Short of picking 19-year-olds Jacob Wright and Nico O’Reilly — who is not a holding midfielder by trade — there is only so much that can be done in the engine room. Rico Lewis has been tried as a solution both in defence and midfield but has had the same issues as the others.
No matter how much it may appear that things are not changing, City do recognise the need to shake things up. They were not planning to do much business in January until their struggles, including injuries, continued into December and they reshuffled their budgets to make funds available now that were intended to be spent in the summer.
They are close to tying up deals for three players and, crucially, exploring possibilities for a fourth. Abdoukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis are highly promising young centre-backs and Omar Marmoush can add some verve in attack, but that is not going to change much in the midfield.
That is why that fourth target is a holding midfielder. Fans should not get too excited: if City cannot get who they feel is right, they will lean on the new centre-backs (mostly Khusanov), and ask Manuel Akanji to move up into midfield. That was Guardiola’s original plan back in November, and it may not inspire confidence either, but injuries have deprived him of even the opportunity to do that.
Something needs to change and everybody at City recognises that — even if it does not always look like it.
(Top photo: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
