Until the 23rd when they play again against Tottenham, there is time to clear our minds, says Pep Guardiola. But above all to recover injured players and, in any case, to change the dynamics of the team. Manchester City is second in the Premier League, but is already five points behind the leader, Liverpool. For the first time in his successful career as a coach, Guardiola has lost four games in a row, all played away: one in the League Cup against Tottenham (2-1), one in the Champions League in Lisbon against Sporting (4-1) and and, this Saturday, Brighton (2-1). There are mitigating factors, because the team has its four central defenders injured and suffers from the absence of its axis, Rodri. But there is also alarm and a desire for revenge. “More than ever I want to solve this. It’s my challenge, our challenge. We have to change it and win again,” Guardiola explained before leaving Brighton.
The determination with which Guardiola focuses on continuity in defeat, the finality of his approach, has also generated relief among City fans. “I’m not going to give up. Not at all”, he ditches. And this warning comes at a time when there is debate over whether the coach will agree to sign an extension, even a brief one, to the contract that binds him to the club and which expires in June. “More than ever I want to return the team to its highest level,” he slipped. The decision in one sense or another on his continuity should be imminent, but City is going through moments of uncertainty, not so much because of the replacement of Txiki Begiristain by Hugo Viana in the sporting direction as because of the open process against the club that could ensue in January severe sanctions for failure to comply with the Premier’s financial regulations.
City’s future is being settled in several offices, but the present is based on the green. And there Guardiola handles several keys. The first: “that the players return in shape.” At Brighton he had the four centre-backs in the squad unusable. Akanji and Aké took their places on the bench, but the coach revealed afterwards that they could not play. Ruben Dias and Stones stayed in Manchester, on sick leave. Thus, full-back Gvardiol lined up as a center back next to Jahnai Simpson, a 19-year-old debutant. Much literature has been written about the weight of Rodri’s absences in the team, but an essential chapter describes that in the entire combo that Guardiola manages there is no player with similar characteristics. The loss of Kovacic is trying to occupy him, who is trying to adapt his characteristics as a footballer who breaks lines by leading to a new role. When the Spanish midfielder was trying to recover from a milder injury than the current one last summer, Guardiola even used the word “survival.” In any case, the coach has a lot of faith in the Croatian midfielder, whom he values not only his ability to reach the area, but also his clarity with the ball to handle the pressure of his rivals. “He is a consistent footballer,” he describes him.
Maybe Kovacic isn’t the problem. Not only the center backs are out. Grealish and Doku, two of the wingers who open the field, did not travel to Brighton and Lisbon and have barely been able to help the team in recent weeks. The picture is completed with the lukewarm performance of Foden and De Bruyne, far from their best moment. “It seems like I’m complaining, but what can be compared now compared to past seasons? Well, in them we had the entire team at our disposal,” Guardiola reflected this Saturday. “When everyone is well, we will return,” guarantees the coach. Ahead of him is the national team break and after them two home games, Tottenham in the Premier and Feyenoord in the Champions League, before traveling to Liverpool on the first day of December to face a key event in the fight to win the fifth consecutive league title. .
