Recent goals conceded appear to show a lack of appetite from Man City stars
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By RIATH AL-SAMARRAI
Published: 07:01 EST, 30 November 2024 | Updated: 07:04 EST, 30 November 2024
The walkers gave the game away. Not Kyle, not this time, because he wasn’t on the pitch. But the strollers were there and they are easy enough to spot when you review the footage of a meltdown.
We are going back to Tuesday night, two minutes to play. The rods are overheating. Manchester City were 3-0 up, now it’s 3-2, and Feyenoord’s Anis Hadj-Moussa has just pinged a ball over the top.
When it leaves his left boot, City have six men in their own half, Feyenoord four, but the difference is none of the latter are napping. They’re on the chase.
Igor Paixao is the key figure here. He isn’t watching the ball, he’s looking to where it’s going to land, and he’s got the jump on all of them, especially Ederson, who has charged out of his goal and into a race he’s never going to win. A soft header off the bounce takes Paixao past the keeper but a little wide to the right, and with it the defenders have a slight opportunity to get back.
Let’s freeze the frame and consider how they failed to use it. What we are looking at is the kind of picture that will have Pep Guardiola scratching his head and face, peeling himself down to new levels of vulnerability, because when Paixao scans the City box for his next move, he has four unmarked team-mates in there with him. They have all sprinted to keep up.
What we won’t see are many blue shirts - only Rico Lewis and Jahmai Simpson-Pusey have made a serious effort to track the raiding party, Ederson is out of position, and no one whatsoever has picked up David Hancko, who has run half the length of the field and is free to head the equaliser off Paixao’s cross.
Pep Guardiola was left scratching his head as Man City let a 3-0 lead slip against Feyenoord
The draw increased the sense of crisis at Man City, who have now gone six games without a win
So, a question: where on earth are the other three who were in City’s half when Hadj-Moussa sent it long? This is where we come back to the subject of our walkers - Josko Gvardiol, James McAtee, Matheus Nunes.
All were in place to get involved in a retrieval operation, or at least try, and none of them did much more than walk or jog before it was far too late. Where Feyenoord could call on gut-busters in a time of need, Guardiola had only the gutless in his.
And now he has crisis.
A strong word, crisis. And everything is relative, of course. But City are City, Guardiola is Guardiola, and the City of Guardiola has never gone six games without a win. His players don’t stroll, they surge. When their going is tough, they get tougher. When the pressure is pressing down on their scalps, they grow taller. And now they aren’t.
But have at it, chaps, it’s only Liverpool at Anfield next. Just know that if walking was a mistake against Feyenoord, then walking in front of tank would bring sharper consequences.
Or maybe it won’t go that way. Maybe this will be the day when the fever dream ends and City wake up. When an eight-point deficit becomes five and a season ignites. When one of the most expensively assembled and dominant teams in all of sport remembers who they are meant to be. Maybe they will fight a bit harder for the sake of Guardiola’s skin. Who in their right mind would bet against it?
But in the here now, it is extraordinary to contemplate what we have seen from this side of late. Is it the creeping age profile of Guardiola’s squad? Injuries? The irreplaceable qualities of Rodri and the wearing and tearing of Kevin De Bruyne? Is it the subconscious weight of those financial charges and the prospect, slight as it may be, that it might end with the handing back of a few medals?
It could be combination of all those things, and City need not call on Lord David Pannick to make the argument for leeway. We can give it freely. Great teams can have bad runs and all empires shrink eventually. That’s sport.
Footage of the equaliser showed Feyenoord stars racing forward to support Igor Paixao
Four Feyenoord players end up in the box for the cross as Man City players strolled back
Rodri's injury has impacted Man City but recent goals conceded have had a similar theme
But how about those walkers? That was different – it looked less like fatigue and more like indifference and a group not sufficiently jolted by five straight defeats. Less willing to put in a shift. It seemed that way when Gvardiol jogged after Evanilson when Bournemouth went 2-0 up a few weeks back. And Walker, when he trundled behind James Maddison as Tottenham built the same score. For 3-0 in that match, Pedro Porro ran 30 yards or more off the ball before anyone ambled in his direction.
Injuries will sap a squad’s intensity, and City have had few of those, but so can a lack of appetite, and performances have started to ring that bell.
Which makes me think about the other club in Manchester and the delicate ways ecosystems can be destabilised.
Remember 2001? Sir Alex Ferguson does. Across all his years, that was the one which brought his biggest regret, owing to his decision to let it be known he was leaving United at the end of the 01-02 season.
As he has articulated a number of times, that was a colossal mistake – levels dropped. Subtly but surely, they dipped. And you could see it in their walkers. Some of the fear, the need to make an impression every single day, was gone. Having won a third title in three years in the summer of 2001, beating Arsenal by 10 points, they were third in the summer of 2002, 10 points behind the same club. Between October 20 and November and December 8 they had sleepwalked into a run of six defeats in eight games across league and cup.
So I wonder about that contract Guardiola just signed, and all those months when no one seemed to know if he would soon be gone, City’s recruitment team among them. I also wonder if he will one day reflect that some of this current inertia was caused by his own indecision, as much as those injuries and other factors.
If City beat Liverpool on Sunday, we will probably park this discussion. If they somehow win the title, we will forget it ever happened. But they have a lot of ground to cover, a lot to fix, and it really is time to pick up the pace.
Pedro Porro scoring for Spurs last weekend having raced forward 30 yards off the ball untracked
Josko Gvardiol was punished for jogging back when Evanilson scored for Bournemouth
Guardiola takes his side to Liverpool in a crucial match for their Premier League hopes
DeChambeau might be even smarter than he thinks he is
Bryson DeChambeau always styled himself as a genius and I was never fully convinced. But he drew 80million clicks to his social media channels as he attempted to land a hole in one with a sand wedge over his glass-fronted mansion to a back-garden green.
He missed 133 times and nailed the 134th on the 16th day of trying.
When I compare the audience he achieved to the average of 2.8m who tuned into majors and PGA Tour events throughout the 2024 season, I’m inclined to concede he might even be smarter than he thinks.
DeChambeau completed the challenge on the 16th day of trying
He missed 133 times and nailed the 134th on the 16th day of trying
Benn saga throws up more questions about UKAD
When the Conor Benn doping saga started in these pages two years ago, a prominent figure in boxing asked me if UK Anti-Doping would have the willpower and balls to see a messy, complicated case through to the end.
We still don’t know if Benn ever supplied any scientific evidence for how a banned substance entered his system and caused two failed tests. But we do know UKAD waived their right to one last appeal against a verdict to clear him of all charges.
Among other questions thrown up by the case, that enquiry about UKAD feels as relevant now as it did then.
Conor Benn has been cleared to fight in England again by UK Anti-Doping (UKAD)