Football News: Team Review - Manchester City

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Team Review - Manchester City

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League Position: 1st

Ins And Outs

Ins:
Jack Grealish from Aston Villa
Kayky from Fluminese
Scott Carson from Derby County

Outs:
Ferran Torres to Barcelona
Angelino to RB Leipzig
Jack Harrison to Leeds United
Lukas Nmecha to VfL Wolfsburg
Philippe Sandler to Troyes (loan)
Patrick Roberts to Troyes (loan)
Arijanet Muric to Adana Demirspor (loan)
Eric Garcia to Barcelona
Sergio Aguero to Barcelona
Yangel Herrera to Espanyol (loan)
Filip Stevanovic to Heerenveen (loan)
Ko Itakura to FC Schalke 04 (loan)
Issa Kabore to Troyes (loan)
Marlos Moreno to KV Kortrijk (loan)
Daniel Arzani to Lommel SK (loan)
Ryotaro Meshino to Estoril Praia (loan)

Goalkeepers:

Ederson
Zack Steffen
Scott Carson

A first choice pair of keepers that are very suited to the way City play, though one is rash and the other inexperienced. As we have seen in recent weeks watching local rivals United play, having players suited to the style of play is at least as important as their individual qualities. There is no keeper in the world more suited to Pep Guardiola's game than Ederson and that gives City a great platform to build on.

Defenders:

Ruben Dias
Aymeric Laporte
John Stones
Nathan Ake
Oleksandr Zinchenko
Benjamin Mendy
Joao Cancelo
Kyle Walker

The loss of Mendy to prison is unbalancing the team, but it has meant Pep has been unable to rotate at the back the way he likes which has helped them produce a settled pairing in the centre. That unintended consequence makes Citeh a much more solid team defensively and less prone to dropping points on their bad days. Having Cancelo back on the right, now Zinchenko and Ake are available again, has strengthened them considerably. They do need to replace Mendy badly though, as the lack of a true specialist left-back affects their pattern of play severely at times.

Midfielders:

Rodri
Fernandinho
Phil Foden
Ilkay Gundogan
Kevin De Bruyne
Bernardo Silva
Cole Palmer
Luke Ilic

It is not the strongest midfield group, surprisingly, though Bernardo Silva is in great form currently he is still not as good as his namesake David Silva, who they do miss at times. To make up for that, Guardiola has been a lot more cautious with his team selections, using two midfielders sitting to protect the defence. It has worked, making them more solid, but they have missed the creativity of the early days of Pep at City. It has not helped that De Bruyne seems to be missing games regularly through injury and takes a while to get back to form after each one.

There is a good mix of youth and experience there, they just need to keep Foden on the straight and narrow, which was difficult before they brought in Grealish, but now looks nigh on impossible. They will need to replace Fernandinho sooner rather than later, he is now barely even a bit part player and they do miss his leadership (and ability to commit 500 bookable offences before even picking up a warning from the referee) at times.

Forwards:

Raheem Sterling
Jack Grealish
Riyad Mahrez
Gabriel Jesus

This is where the problems lie, the attacking line up is weak, usually relying on borrowing a midfielder or two to bolster it, thanks to the Harry Kane shambles in the summer and the stupidity of wasting £100m on average Jack Grealish. It is not just that Grealish was never good enough for Man City's team, it is that he plays a role they already have plenty of players for and so was a completely unnecessary buy. It was the same stupidity that Guardiola displayed when he spent 60m and Eto'o to bring in Zlatan while at Barcelona. They are left still needing a replacement for Aguero and that needs to be addressed in the summer.

Manager: Pep Guardiola

Life must be so great when you are Pep Guardiola, get handed the best team in the world at Barcelona and obscene amounts of money to spend. Despite that, and having Lionel Messi coming to his peak, you gradually make the team worse. Then, when you get tired of it, you just move on to the new best team in the world at Bayern Munich, get handed huge sums of money to spend and repeat the process. When you have enough of that, you move on to the richest club in the world, with an excellent squad, get handed more money than many countries national budgets and still you fail to win the Champions League but you just get more and more money to spend.

Then, when you finally get a challenger at national level that looks capable of pushing your team and even beating it, a pandemic comes along that swings everything back in your favour again. It was finally a chance to see how great, or otherwise, a coach he actually was before that happened. Now it is just about squad depth, with so many of the teams City are facing decimated by injuries and virus protocols, the team they are playing are usually already out on their feet before the game kicks off. Will we ever get to find out if he really is the best coach in the world or just the luckiest?

Conclusion:

While these current pandemic protocols are in force, Man City should stroll to the title without any real issue. While their squad might not be as strong in forward and midfield areas as previously under Guardiola, it is certainly by far the strongest depth-wise. There is very little difference to quality whether Pep has to field the first choice eleven or the third choice one. They are also able to rotate and refresh the team constantly, while others are being forced to run players into the ground. The real test for Guardiola is what he can do in Europe, he really does need to make the most of the advantages handed to him by the isolation protocols leaving most other teams weakened constantly. He might not get a better chance to win the Champions League with Man City.

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Written by Tris Burke January 07 2022 15:14:40