Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola now looks like the Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus when Rome fell in 476 AD. He knows his masterpiece is falling and is powerless to stop its disintegration.
Manchester City conceded two late goals in the Manchester derby, or rivalry match, last weekend, losing 2-1 to bitter rivals Manchester United. City fans at their home ground at the Etihad Stadium sat almost silent. No one was angry. They had witnessed greatness for almost a decade under Guardiola, but that silence was grim. Absolutely no one had seen this run of just one win in the last 12 games in all competitions.
Manchester City have won six of the last seven Premier League titles and eight of the last 13. It’s a dynasty.
A few months ago they became the only team in the history of English football to win four consecutive top-flight titles. The season before that they had won the treble (Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup), becoming only the second team in English history to do so. Everything was going well historically. What could go wrong?
Fast forward a few months and City were in trouble. Badly. They had lost six of their last eight Premier League games. In total, they had lost just 11 Premier League games combined over the previous three seasons.
It feels like the beginning of the end of Guardiola’s incredible reign as City’s marauding, all-conquering emperor in the most competitive league on the planet.
Can Manchester City pull this off? We usually say yes. Given the quality of players, depth of squad and manager, City usually improve in the second half and start winning trophies after a slow start to the season.
But it feels different. The signs are not good at the moment.
City playmaker Bernardo Silva has slammed his team-mates for their decision-making at the end of last weekend’s shock defeat to Manchester United.
“At this level, if it’s a game or two you can say it’s lucky or unlucky, but if it’s 10 games it’s not,” Silva said. “There have been so many games lately. … We have to look at ourselves. It’s the decisions you make. Today, in the last few minutes, we played like we had less than 15 seconds and we paid for it.”
And that’s the crux of the problem. Guardiola’s philosophy of “total football” is based on taking risks in possession, piling players up to have a numerical advantage in the final third, and keeping the ball and making the right decisions. But what happens when you don’t and lose the ball?
City have always had Rodri, the defensive midfielder who was recently voted the best player on the planet, to plug gaps, cover cracks, win the ball back and be the best get-out-of-jail-free card.
But Rodri was sidelined with a season-ending knee injury in September against Arsenal. That’s when it all started. Rodri’s importance to City was obvious, but no one realised how much of an impact his injury would have, simply because he has been an almost constant presence since his move from Atletico Madrid in 2019.
City have tried everything they can to replace Rodri over the past few months, but Guardiola, who is usually a genius at solving problems through creative solutions, has run out of ideas.
City’s only hope is to sign a sensationally talented defensive midfielder in the January transfer window to fill the void left by Rodri. But in reality, that will only obscure the cracks in an ageing, injury-hit squad with so many stars limping over the hill at the same time.