Renewal of Man City: Why £ 130 million is just the beginning of the much needed reconstruction of the Premier League champion | Football news
“In the summer, the club thought about it and I said ‘No, I don’t want to sign,'” Pep Guardiola revealed before Manchester City traveled to Brentford last week.
A day later, his team rejected the 2-0 lead, adding two more points to the collection they had dropped from the winning positions this season – which now extends to 14 – receiving their 28th and 29th goals of the season.
For the context, this is more than they allowed during the 2017/18 and 2021/22 season with 16 remaining games in this campaign. And without mentioning three more points that gave 2-0 at PSG in the middle of the week.
Guardiola and City were forced into action. The alarm bells were loud enough to sanction £ 130 million for three new players this month: Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis. This is almost four times more than they spent in the last four January periods together.
Jack Grealish said he hoped that the trio would be enough to return “scattering” to Man City, but adding an attacker and two central backs does not affect their balance in the middle of the park without the owner Ballon d’Or Rodri.
Even without its steering in the middle of the terrain, it is worth remembering that City was still led by the Premier League by the end of October, as a reminder of how sudden the fall came.
Guardiola routinely blames for club pain on his own beard. On this occasion, he can take the right to some responsibility by looking back; Deeper recruitment during the summer would offer some protection to their deeper problems with the team.
It is a team whose bench would once enter the starting lineup of most rivals for the title. Pep had Riyada Mahrez, Leroya Sane and Gabriela Jesus once a long time ago, as a spare front three.
Employment in recent years has not reached these heights, because Jeremy Loc, Grealish and Matheus Nunes only show such a caliber in attacks and starts. But City has a far greater care with the ball than with it, especially that hole in the form of rodri at the foot of the middle of the terrain.
Compare it with players of similar importance. If Virgil Van Dijk started one game for Liverpool this season, would you have enough reserve for the top of the Premier League?
The Spaniard is so good that his ACL injury created a void at both ends of the field, leaving defense affected by injuries without the best screen in the world and forcing Guardiola to find other ways to hide creativity in the middle of the park.
Defense exposure strongly focused its attention to the rapid fall of Kyle Walker and this is an area that Guardiola could see to come in advance. Walker lost a meter of tempo in the Euro 2024 final. In July and until Timo Werner embarrassed him for Tottenham’s fourth in November, it was clear that he would no longer find him.
In the second lodge, Julian Alvarez – who started the 31th Premier League game last season – he brought City a decent profit in August, but left them without any attacking alternative to Erling Haaland, who had already had to play 27 full 90 minutes of this season.
Haaland’s 17 goals in the league is the biggest share of City goals scored by one player in any season under the leadership of Guardiola. Marmoush’s arrival is welcome and not before time.
The one where no one could see City separating the way it is is the pure ruthlessness of their injuries. This is a team that went through, and left, and went again for four years, winning the triple title, four Premier League titles, and even the Super Cup and World Club Championships last year.
Only three of City’s first teams are 31 or more years old, and Man City’s average of the initial 11 this season is younger than Liverpool. This is not only an age, but even intensity.
Pep thought he could pull another melody from his team, but with the relentlessness of their schedule and his requests, something had to be released in the end.
De Bruyne’s giving up, but Ruben Dias, John Stones and Nathan Ake, have missed 37 mutual matches, and the first is now re -excluded due to the trigger problem and has no current time frame for his return. Four of the six league defeats of City happened in the nine games he was staying. Can I re -reach old levels? Neither Guardiola nor City’s staff can be safe.
Their injuries forced Manuel Akanji to start 25 games, immediately after playing every minute of the quarterfinals of Switzerland at Euro 2024 last summer and the vast majority of City’s matches last period. He himself looked incompetent, and his defensive metric was almost unanimously faded.
The new signing of Khusanov and the return of Stones will alleviate some pressure from the broader defensive problems of Akanji and City, even if the other defensive Reis seems too young to make a serious influence in the near future, after barely 20 games in professional football.
None of this does not solve the bigger problem of the middle of the terrain, where Mateo Kovacic cannot pull the threads in the same way he can pine on his own. It’s not just his fault, but his task is to strengthen the midfield that has already faced more fast interruptions than in any season under Guardiola.
It is regularly located in front of the game is Bernard Silva as his permanent partner, there is not enough cover when that happens. Part of this comes down to Guardiola’s demands to defend himself by holding the ball – but without Rodri, City also lacks a player who regularly ends up the highest addition and the highest addition that break through the line in the entire league.
The summer return of Ilkaya Gundogan, who also tried this role, was a nice moment of nostalgia, but he has no legs for games that Rodri could play.
Guardiola decided to take the risk opposite the award, knowing that Rodri had not suffered a significant injury, nor had it been needed for a long time outside the team, at any of his eight previous seasons since he broke into Villarreal. For the first time, he saw what happened when it wasn’t worth it.
“I don’t want new signatures in January,” Guardiola said before Christmas. “I just want to go back my injured players.”
His reluctance has finally relented in terms of the permanent nature of City’s results and performances, but no matter how they repair the defects elsewhere, the club cannot continue to suffer for a long time without their main role.
There are still the flashes of the old town without it – the recent return of De Bruyne’s incidental master courses and Phil Foden, who found himself among the goals. But fragile confidence and the beaten midfield remains.
It may take time to get back to his best, just as Van Dijk did after his own ACL injury 2020. The direct replacement will still be difficult to find, but until someone could consistently carry part of the cargo, this seems just like the beginning of re -construction.
January showed how expensive and painful the overhaul shows, as £ 130 million has already been spent, and City is still reporting to consider playing Stones or Akanji as an improvised number 6.
Maybe Hugo Viani will be the first job in the summer. There was life before Rodri, and it would be after him, but only, it seems clear, with another significant expense.
Watch Man City against Chelsea live on Sky Sports Premier League from 5:00 pm on Saturday; Beginning at 5.30pm.
