Pep Guardiola’s career path has always seemed too dreamy, as if he were the football manager’s teenager. Again his team is shaped according to his method, again his trainees display brilliant ability and again he puts his hands on the local championship title. The best players in the world passed under his hands, but even if you did not know his trainees, when they were on the field you could tell straight from the way they played – they play for Guardiola. There is no room for doubt. Last year, something in this conception cracked.
Manchester City lost the championship after two years in the title, and the Champions League was relegated, once again, and by French side Lyon, a team that the Citizens have to throw away every day and in every situation. Towards the current season City have not received proper preparation, like many teams, following the global crisis. And yet, after watching their last games, it’s hard to believe the trainees are azure playing at Manchester City, the formidable team from recent years. It’s hard to recognize they’re playing under Guardiola. Here are some of the reasons.
glass ceiling
City have not won a honeymoon in the Champions League. Maybe it collapsed below the size of expectations, it could be that the lack of tradition in the factory had an effect, and certainly the coach’s sophistication at the crucial stages did. Bottom line, they found themselves thrown out of the prestigious factory time and time again, despite the huge amount of money invested. After a season of acclimatization, Pep’s City easily won the championship, and in the following season Liverpool reached the peak of capacity in three decades, and yet the title remained in place, painted a light blue. The sense of pride, security and superiority can only be imagined.
But the next step in the program became impossible, especially psychologically. If it did not work against Monaco in the last eight of the Champions League (2016/2017) it will not work against Liverpool in the quarterfinals (2017/2018), and when it did not work against Tottenham in the quarter (2018/2019), it will not work at the same stage, a year later, Opposite Lyon.
The squad, most of them, have never reached the later stages of the Champions League, fans express less interest in international games and rarely attend them, and the team coach has to take a monkey off his back when it comes to knockout games – as he has never won the tournament without Messi’s kind help. When the pinnacle of your ambitions does not seem achievable, and this alternative has been occupied by you repeatedly in the past, your appetite dies down, and the motivation to fight every game fades.
Foot finishes
It is hard to underestimate the importance of Con Aguero to his team. During his nine years at the club (not including the current one), he averaged 22.5 percent of the team’s goals, scored 20 goals per season, and knew how to deliver the goods in every minute of play in which he was qualified – with a goal every 106 minutes, more than great strikers in their teams. Examples include Kane at Tottenham, Saleh at Liverpool, Zlatan at all his clubs in Italy, Suarez at Barcelona, Rooney at United, Drogba at Chelsea, Shearer at Newcastle, Henry at Arsenal, and more.
It is therefore understandable that the Citizens have difficulty coping without him, as he spends most of his time on the treatment bed. Certainly when his replacement, Gabriel Jesus, fails to get into his big shoes, and sometimes even suffers from problems as a service of his own. Just for comparison, in the past three seasons the team has scored 18, 22, 23 respectively more goals than the current one has managed after 14 games. The disadvantage of the finishing leg proved to the sayings that even if they purchased the most glittering weapons available, without the cartridge they would lose the punch.
leadership
As fans on the side, it is easy for us to demand changes, even though we are unaware of other aspects that are only revealed in training or in the locker room. When we see that the team is slow, we demand more speed, when the attacking players do not hit, we wish for another striker and when the defense is perforated for a new brake or goalkeeper. We will judge with confidence based on what we see on the field. And Pep, as mentioned, is like a boy playing a computer game, or even a fan from the stands.
He saw, like all of us, talents about developing – like de Bruyne or Sana – so he brought them to Manchester. It was clear to everyone that the team had a defensive problem, so he brought in defensive players worth hundreds of millions of pounds. But sometimes, not everything goes as written in the book. After all, this is a group of people, in the end, and things can go wrong. Therefore, it is important to also take into account the things that do not go into the statistics.
And in this case, the need for those to lift their teammates into the locker room in the tough moments, to direct them to the pitch. Leadership is difficult to quantify in numbers, but it is sorely needed. So it’s hard to break away from the feeling that City have not found who will step into the shoes of David Silva, who left on the last break, and the company shoes that he left even before. There is no symbol that the Belgian captain scored the goal of the last championship from the brake position. When everyone is healthy, the Citizens have all the skills and abilities to win each degree. Only one component is missing, and its lack makes it difficult for them. character.
It is important to say. These are the reasons why City have shown disappointing ability this season, so far. But everything can change. Certainly now, when Aguero returns to fitness, a transfer window in the doorway and the team in front of her was drawn in the Champions League, Borussia Mönchengladbach, is a hurdle that the Blues are supposed to go through. Does anyone, for example, remember that at this point in the season last year, the Bayern Munich machine faltered and looked bad?
City have the tools to turn everything around, especially when the rest of the elite teams have started the season badly. But in order to continue to establish its status as a super club, it will have to overcome these difficulties, and fast. Otherwise, it may get on the path where it loses its assets and returns to its size from those days – before foreign ownership.
