When Manchester City unfairly announced the appointment of then Bayern Munich manager as their manager for the 2016/2017 Season despite the fact the contract of Manuel Pellegrini still had five months to run, some football fans were so certain of the Spaniard’s success that it was even alleged he would go unbeaten in his first season in charge in the Premier League.
Having finally taken over, Guardiola wasted no time to flex his muscles in the transfer market signing attacking players like Gabriel Jesus (excess of £22 million from Palmeiras), Nolito £12 million- Celta Vigo, Sane £37 million- Schalke 04, Ilkay Gundogan -£22 million Borussia Dortmund to mention but a few despite the fact City boasted the best attacking players in the league even before Guardiola’s appointment with the likes of Kelvin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling, David Silva, Kelechi Iheanocho and Sergio Aguero. Upon his appointment, Guardiola was seen as a genius who never gets it wrong despite the fact that the area that needed urgent summer overhaul was the defensive side of the team with the likes of Bakary Sagna, Pablo Zabaleta, Gael Clichy and Alexander Kolarov all above 30 and no longer In their best shapes. The situation is even worse when one also adds the injury concerns of then ever defensive rock Vincent Kompany who for sometime now is hardly fit coupled with the fact that Nicholas Otamendi and Elaoquim Mangala were yet to prove themselves in the squad despite the huge sums they both cost.
Instead of sealing his defence and making necessary changes, Guardiola decided to bench City’s number one goalkeeper Joe Hart in his first three games before sending him on loan to Torino and then spending an unnecessary £17 million on 33 year-old Claudio Bravo from Barcelona with error prone centre back John Stones costing £45 million from Everton. Also in a bid to stamp his authority the likes of Samir Nasri and Wilfred Bony were sent out on loan to both Sevilla and Stoke City respectively as Guardiola claimed they didn’t fit in with his Catalonia philosophy. The fans were told this was the ideal team that will played full throttle attacking and possession football devouring opponents at random . To silence his critics the Spaniard won his first six league games scoring 18 goals and conceding only five. At the point it seemed like City would certainly go unbeaten considering how perfect they appeared. Fast-forward to the present day and City are in shambles after they Citizens were totally outplayed by relegation strugglers and Premier Champions Leicester City on Saturday night (Leicester were 3-0 up within 30 minutes of play. In total, Guardiola’s team have won only three league games from a possible eight after Mauricio Porchetino’s young Spurs demystified them back in September.
With the poor form, it was only a matter of time before the manager’s every decision is scrutinised considering his highly revered goalkeeper has conceded six goals out of seven shots on target in the last three games saving only one. Time and time again , Bravo has proved he isn’t what many thought he was as he has being the scape goat a lot of times alongside Stones.
It is clear City would have performed better if Guardiola tried to paper the cracks in defence which cost them the title last season considering the average age of his defenders is above 30. Rather than sign at least two centre backs and a right back, Guardiola opts to move Kolarov to the centre in a four man back line or play him in a three man defence which has been disastrous at all times.
With the likes of Aguero, De Bruyne, Navas, Sterling and Yaya Toure, Guardiola clearly did not really need to sign most of the attacking players he did in the summer considering he could have used some of the funds to sign two or three top class defenders rather than John Stones who will rather make mistakes or misplace passes instead of booting the ball away.
One thing is clear and that is “Pep Guardiola clearly underestimated the English Premiership thinking he could win games with little or no defence and this has clearly cost him as he sits four points (3rd) behind Chelsea who have a game in hand against West Brom on Sunday.” For now it is only a case of damage control as City are on a free fall due to their inability to defend even against weaker sides despite their goal scoring prowess.
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