The problems are mounting for Pep Guardiola. On Friday he described himself as “maybe not good enough” for Manchester City, a clear indication of the pressure he is feeling, and on Saturday he faces the Premier League’s most in-form team in a game he can ill afford to lose.
This was not how he nor City had envisaged the season unfolding when he took charge in the summer. Tottenham Hotspur – with seven consecutive wins – are the opponents at the Etihad and should City lose then a top-four finish becomes even harder, never mind winning the league. City are fifth after last Sunday’s 4-0 defeat at Everton, two points off a Champions League berth.
The league position is not Guardiola’s sole concern, though. Claudio Bravo continues to be a liability. The goalkeeper was culpable again at Everton and his confidence appears shot. Yet Guardiola does not blame Bravo. Instead, he says the Chilean is suffering because of the team’s poor defending.
As for up front, Guardiola’s appraisal is that City’s finishing is not the “machine” of the other challengers, which can be read as a dig at the lone striker, Sergio Agüero, despite 18 goals in 23 outings across all competitions.
Guardiola’s statement on Friday that he himself is possibly not of the requisite standard came when he was asked if City’s players are as good as those he coached at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
“Maybe I am not good enough for them,” he said. “They are Manchester City players, they have a lot of quality. They showed that many times in the past and this season. I have respect for the guys, so why would I say the guys are not good? I don’t understand the lack of respect for the professionals when they are amazing players and [the question suggests] they are not good enough for me.”
Misunderstanding
Guardiola’s focus on the Spur’s game may have caused a misunderstanding, as the question was not whether his players are good enough per se but if they are on the same level as Lionel Messi, Xavi, Arjen Robben and others at his previous clubs.
This is the manager who has won a league title in six of his seven full seasons as a head coach. His Barça side are considered among the finest in the game’s history. At Bayern, refinement of his carousel passing game, in which he utilised full-back Philipp Lahm as a midfielder, pointed to a far-sighted football intelligence.
Yet in this briefing Guardiola claimed his arrival was over-hyped, saying: “Maybe the expectations about my coming here were so excessive, now you realise your [media] commentary was so exaggerated, maybe our 10 games in a row, winning games and maybe the people expected that that was how good we were.
“So the reality is that we were going to build up and I am working on that and then I will be the first to recognise if I am not able or we are not able to do that and speak with the club to make a solution.”
Guardiola has been consistent in saying that he moved here to challenge himself. City’s current predicament is doing precisely that. “I would prefer to be at the top but it’s not the situation. I want to handle that – it’s the first time,” he said.
One statistic Guardiola and Bravo have to contemplate is that the goalkeeper has saved only eight of the last 22 shots. For now, however, the Chilean will not be dropped. “When I think there is a problem I will consider, but at the moment he is still in goal,” said Guardiola.
Regarding how to handle Bravo’s bad form, Guardiola added: “It is to be as close as possible to [the playerthat his current deal ends in 2020. The striker, though, is still to score against a top-seven side, and Guardiola said: “He knows that, I know that, but we don’t discuss it. We have to try to help him to score against the top teams. Of course he wants to score and sometimes he had the chances.”
The manager criticised Agüero for misses in December’s 3-1 home defeat to Chelsea. “We can review Chelsea – he had the chances,” said Guardiola. “Last game [Everton], the cross for Sergio but nothing, he did not arrive there. I don’t know other managers, but to give some advice in the box to score a goal, it’s so difficult to do this because it depends on the quality of the players. For example Agüero’s second goal against Burnley, it’s almost impossible to do it – that shows his talent.”
For now, Guardiola has to continue the search for a solution to City’s Achilles’ heel. “It is because we have chances but we don’t score,” he said. “The big teams score, they have the quality and they are machines – but that is the most difficult thing to achieve. When they get into our box we concede. The first few times: ‘Oh, it was unlucky.’ Then: ‘No, it was not unlucky.’ Something happened and we are thinking about how to correct that.”
In October’s reverse fixture Spurs gave City a 2-0 schooling at White Hart Lane. City dare not lose again, particularly in similar fashion. Yet whether a win will correct the deep faultlines in Guardiola’s side remains debatable.
Guardian Service
