Pep Guardiola delivers a calm message to his players as the weight of Manchester City’s past feels heavy on their shoulders… but the Treble winners must stay calm in their transition era
Pep Guardiola generally keeps the debriefs short and sharp. Inside the Manchester City dressing room on Sunday evening, he told them not to worry. Refresh and be ready for Aston Villa in three days.
They’re coming thick and fast now. Guardiola’s agitated at the scheduling, bemoaning that the broadcasters are not doing a great to help them around European games, but knows this is a byproduct of being so consistently strong.
City have been here before, with niggling injuries disrupting their flow at key junctures, and it will doubtless happen again – even once the manager has vacated after a glittering spell, the like of which effectively impossible for the next guy to match.
But for now, the message from Guardiola is the same. He is not upset at his players, even with a sermon delivered to Jack Grealish on the pitch after Sunday’s drab goalless draw with Arsenal.
He says he can ‘recognise’ them, which in his language is a team following the plan. They are not playing badly.
Pep Guardiola and his Man City side will be familiar with the position they find themselves in
City will need to overcome a tricky schedule to win the league, after drawing with Arsenal
Yet it is hard to escape comparisons. Last year, teams – Arsenal one of them – were blown away at the Etihad Stadium.
Hostile, nasty, home of an already exceptional team smelling history. And while City are performing fairly well, a run of 23 matches unbeaten in all competitions since early December, there is a feeling of wanting more.
There is a feeling that more exists within them and if that turns up, City still have a strong chance of doing something special again. Still they wait for the absolute maximum, the surety of Erling Haaland’s goals or Kevin De Bruyne’s divine intervention.
The expectation has been that it will properly click at some point, with the past seven years providing evidence. Perhaps at any other club, the long run of not losing would represent their best. Not at this one, with the peaks considerably higher than anybody else’s.
There will be frustration in that dressing room, questions asked as to why half chances are not flying in, why the early blitzes are not quite as prevalent.
It’s a funny thing to analyse. Three points is the gap to Liverpool with nine games to play. A Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid coming up. Chelsea in the last four of the FA Cup. Normally, this might feel as if it’s all set up for a late charge.
So why doesn’t it? It’s about expectations and the weight of their recent past and the memories created on the run to Istanbul.
‘Because we won five (titles) in six (years), you (think we) have to win by being 10 points in front,’ Guardiola said. ‘You can’t because the other teams are really good.’
Arguably, Man City are still waiting for the absolute maximum, the surety of Erling Haaland’s goals or Kevin De Bruyne’s divine intervention
At times it has looked as though Man City may have missed the quality of Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez in their mini-transition era
City will take on Spanish giants Real Madrid in their Champions League quarter-final clash
And it’s about who they miss in what has constituted a mini-transition in a post-Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez era.
This week last year, both started the 4-1 win over Liverpool. Gundogan got the important third goal. Mahrez assisted the second for De Bruyne. These are huge characters taken out of a Treble team, characters who stepped up and won games on their own when Haaland and De Bruyne didn’t.
Think the FA Cup final when Gundogan got both, or the semi-final when Mahrez left with a hat-trick, albeit against Championship opposition. Or when Gundogan inspired that dramatic last-day comeback against Villa, or Mahrez’s single goal at Chelsea in January last year when Arsenal threatened run away with the league in what for him was a modest season.
These are not easy people to replace. They are not the reason why City didn’t beat an Arsenal team set up to stifle but equally, losing both has inevitably heaped an extra burden on others. It’s one facet of a bigger picture surrounding City. But they’re still there, still in with a shout.
