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Manchester CityThe leading group of players managed to pull away quickly from the Allianz Stadium. Light on your feet as always; these players have always been able to get around the opposition.
“I’d love to, but I can’t,” came the responses to reporters who asked for a quick word to analyze Defeated 2-0 by Juventusleaving them in a precarious position in the Champions League and does nothing to calm the swirling noise of crisis.
It’s Manchester derby week. Pep GuardiolaThe team have lost seven of their last 10 matches and are finishing matches with alarming abandon. City supporters deserve to hear from senior players, away from carefully curated platitudes on social media.
In fact, none of the team appeared except to do arranged television interviews. Not club captain Kyle Walkerand not any of the other “captains” in the leadership group.
It was left to Guardiola to publicly defend them again and the Catalan adept for it all, saying he was pleased with the way City performed – to be fair, they weren’t bad for most of the evening – and turned the focus on himself. These players are really lucky to have him.
You wonder where the leadership went in the last six weeks. The tenacity and tenacity that saw City rattle off result after result towards the end of last season, when the style wasn’t flashy, has been replaced by a rather docile and fragile backbone.
Manchester City’s management team need to step up and be held accountable in this poor run of form
They deserve attention and the lack of cohesion is reflected in how they behave
It’s not right for less experienced heads like Rico Lewis to shoulder the burden
Heads fall when things go against them. A collective glum accepting shrug. This has never been City under Guardiola.
This will be the annoying thing for the post-Juventus manager: they had followed his instructions quite well until the first sign of trouble. The same could be said during the disappointing results against Brighton and Feyenoord. This is clearly not a talent issue.
Kevin De Bruyne, Ruben Diaz, Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan are under Walker in the captain’s group and this team – so renowned for its fortitude – now deserves a closer look at its core.
Diaz recently spoke about how bad days or months will define City’s legacy earlier in the week, and while he firmly believes that – Diaz is a motivational junkie – it’s debatable whether that’s the view of many others in the dressing room.
The less experienced heads, Rico Lewis in particular, are taking the brunt, and that’s just the wrong way to go. Gundogan actually started the team huddle before the game, while Walker was still spraying the Italian air with water, as is his ritual. This lack of cohesion is radiating from all of them at the moment.
Guardiola has rightly pointed to injuries during this torturous period as he wants a new central midfielder in January – be it Martin Zubimendi, Ederson or Bruno Guimaraes. Everyone will at this point. Anyone with a pair of legs that moves as fast as Walker did when he headed for that trainer on Wednesday night.
Right-back is sure to be high on the agenda in the summer as well, as Walker heads into the final 12 months of his contract. Guardiola appeared to be phasing out the England international towards the end of the Treble campaign – Walker was no longer automatically selected and featured for just eight minutes in the Champions League final.
Bayern Munich came calling that summer, but City panicked at the amount of experience and handed him a three-year contract – plus the armband for good measure.
Kyle Walker fails in the basics – his mistakes are not from technique, but from a lack of desire
Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva are also part of the leadership group at the champions
Pep Guardiola and the City hierarchy have tough decisions to make regarding the futures of some of their senior stars
So Guardiola has been preparing for games without Walker in 2023 and now 2025 is approaching, with the 34-year-old proving a major problem in defense – guilty of both goals at Crystal Palace at the weekend and again in Turin.
Leaving to stop a cross for the first; running back and letting Weston McKenney have the freedom to field Ederson for second.
These error examples are not technical. It is an application, a desire. Walker has been in trouble for a while, but these are major issues that someone with a BBC podcast called You’ll Never Beat Kyle Walker shouldn’t be doing.
In his latest, published on the day of the Juventus defeat, Walker tells us what Guardiola’s office smells like – the manager will be delighted – and retells an old pasta story invented by Riyad Mahrez.
He has won two football matches since this podcast started, three days before losing the FA Cup final to Manchester United. Perhaps a refreshing name change for the New Year is in order.
