Pep Guardiola’s side collapsed in the Manchester derby and now sit nine points off leaders Liverpool having played a game more
It was neither the most extreme or most expensive piece of scrambled thinking by anyone of a Manchester City persuasion. Yet as Pep Guardiola assessed a run of results that would have seemed beyond anyone’s comprehension, two months ago, there was a statistic he kept quoting. “When you lose eight of 10 at a big club,” he said. It is actually eight in 11, but that is scant consolation.
Where did it come from? Where does it end? Not against Manchester United. Just when City thought they were out of crisis, they pulled themselves back in. The managerial godfather blamed himself. “I am the boss, I am the manager, I am not good enough,” said a self-flagellating Guardiola. “That is the truth.”
His grasp of some facts betrayed him. Not others. “Maybe in one year or a year and a half we were able to lose eight games,” he said. City only lost five matches in the whole of last season, six in 2018-19, seven each in 2017-18 and 2022-23, eight in 2020-21 and again in 2021-22. Now it is eight since 30 October, along with a draw against Feyenoord that felt like a defeat. Relatively recently, City were undefeated in 32 Premier League matches and 26 Champions League games. “We were top of the league and the only team unbeaten in Europe,” said Guardiola. Now only Southampton have as few points since the start of November.
Amad Diallo won a derby for Manchester United. City lost it for themselves. “At this level a game or two is unlucky. We can't say this is lucky or unlucky – 10 games it’s not about that,” said a scathing Bernardo Silva. “Minute 87 in a derby, winning 1-0 and our corner ends in a penalty for them, if we make these stupid decisions with three or four minutes to go you deserve to pay for that. Today in the last minute we played like under-15s.”
City were shocked by two late goals in the Manchester derby
City were shocked by two late goals in the Manchester derby (Getty Images)
He arrowed in themes: poor decisions, individual errors. Matheus Nunes was the culprit in chief against United. In other games, it has been Ederson, or Kyle Walker or Josko Gvardiol. City are amassing the individual errors. There has been a collective breakdown. No one is playing well; there are just degrees of playing below their best. With Walker and Ilkay Gundogan, in particular, there is the sense they will never revisit it.
Yet Guardiola’s teams have tended to be noted for their slickness and chemistry. Not City anymore. “We are not fluid, we were a team that always played with composure that now we don’t have it,” he added. One of the recurring themes among his setbacks over the years has been that teams as expertly drilled and as accustomed to dominance can have short, sharp shocks, when the system malfunctions and they end up conceding goals in quick succession.
They have taken that to new levels. Two in three minutes against United, two in five against Brighton, two in eight against Tottenham, three in 11 against Sporting, three in 15 against Feyenoord: for a team of their experience, for serial winners, City have a weakness. Physically, they can be overpowered. Psychologically, they can be overwhelmed.
“I’m not good enough to find a way so that players find a peace in their bodies and minds to play,” said Guardiola. His anguished expressions and his problems sleeping show he isn’t at peace with himself. City are falling to pieces.
“We cannot sustain this situation for a long, long time with the manager or with the players, that is obvious,” said a manager who signed a new contract last month. “You have to change something.” Now Guardiola is already facing questions if he will stay. “I want it, desperately,” he said; he has already proved more committed than anyone initially expected. A manager in the golden years is adamant he won’t walk away in times of strife.
Pep Guardiola has plenty to think about after City’s latest collapse
Pep Guardiola has plenty to think about after City’s latest collapse (Getty Images)
But staying means overseeing an overhaul. “I knew it would be a tough season from the beginning, but I didn’t expect it would be so hard like it is right now,” said Guardiola. And if that prompts the question of why he expected it to be difficult, and why City didn’t do more in the transfer market, now the problems have multiplied. It means the rebuild will be bigger. City underestimated the decline of Walker and Gundogan. They did not anticipate losing Rodri.
Yet a team who often seemed to have too many high-class players arguably need at least five or six additions. They require a defensive midfielder and another striker, to end the over-reliance on Rodri and Erling Haaland to be the only specialist in either role. They need at least one more midfielder, one who is younger and more athletic than Kevin De Bruyne, Mateo Kovacic and Gundogan. They need a right-back to replace Walker. They could do with another defender, whether an out-and-out left-back or a central defender who will be fit more often than Nathan Ake and John Stones.
In the meantime, they need their confidence and cohesion back. They need to be able to see out games, to respond to setbacks, to weather the difficult spells and capitalise on the good ones. And they have to stop playing like the under-15s.