Too many Manchester City players have stood still or gone backwards this season
Injuries have caused Manchester City to collapse but Manchester City cannot blame injuries for their collapse.
It's clear that the loss of all four senior centre-backs to injury at the end of October in their first defeat of the season destabilised the Blues far more than losing Rodri did. Losing not only the core of the defence but also the first part of the build-up made Pep Guardiola's side worse at both ends of the pitch, and the longer certain players have been out the more that others have been played more than they should and their performance level has gone down further.
That's why the players out there putting in such uncharacteristically poor performances deserve some sympathy. Kyle Walker and Ilkay Gundogan have been two of the most disappointing and the questions over their futures at the club are genuine, but at the same time both have played far more than they would have expected and Walker has also answered his manager's call and played through injuries to help the team.
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At the other end of the age scale, Rico Lewis and Josko Gvardiol were two of City's brightest players at the beginning of the season but have seen their standards slip as they have played and played and played. Guardiola admitted at the end of October that Lewis was shattered but said he couldn't rest him because there was nobody else; only Erling Haaland has played more minutes than those two.
However, while accepting the physical and mental drain on the players that has come from the injury situation that cannot explain all of the shortcomings on the pitch. Walker, Gvardiol, Matheus Nunes and the rest are not making 'Under-15' level errors because of injuries.
Jack Grealish can't cite injuries for the fact he hasn't scored for City in more than a year. Neither can Phil Foden for his failure to look anything like the player he was last season in nearly 1,400 minutes of football. Every midfielder and winger should be embarrassed at the fact that the next highest scorers after Haaland is Gvardiol (four), with nobody else managing more than John Stones' three.
Guardiola has taken responsibility for City's form and that is fair given he takes the praise as the genius when things do go right. But these are experienced players who are used to winning lots of football matches for club and country and they need to show more than they are doing if the season is not going to be a write-off.
They all know this of course, and both Gundogan and Bernardo Silva have been critical of the team in the last week in an attempt to raise standards. It's just that nothing that the players have said or the manager has said has translated into meaningful change on the pitch.
Guardiola takes ultimate responsibility for that, but as he searches for a solution he will be helped enormously by even just some of his squad doing what they need to do to prove that they have been in a slump rather than a decline so that nobody in the squad can talk about excuses or mitigating factors.