Erling Haaland would probably have imagined Manchester City’s upheavals to be like this, but there is obviously a long way to go.
“I feel a positive power in the club,” Haaland said Tuesday in Paris. “It has been a difficult moment, everyone knows it, but I feel full of energy. We’ve received a good education and I feel like we’ve now gotten over that.
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But Wednesday’s 4-2 loss to Paris Saint-Germain, who are also being eliminated from the Champions League, laid bare many of the problems that led to City having to win their final match of the championship phase. next week to gain a position in the standings. playoffs. Training
Pep Guardiola’s side would likely achieve the task by beating Club Brugge next week, but if they need to do something at the festival this season and actually qualify for next season’s edition with a high finish in the Premier League, they will There is a long, long road left. go.
Canal Plus, the French channel, announced that it was fitting one of the important symptom devices seen in hospitals that demonstrate a person’s pulse, reflecting how much those two groups were holding up, but as the game progressed , PSG seemed to have become more powerful. and more powerful as City faded.
The hosts scored their fourth goal with the last kick of the game long after City had been 2-0 up 8 minutes into the second half. Instead of clawing their way to victory, they managed to regain some balance in the game thereafter. This is the ninth time City have led this season without a win, the third time in their last four Champions League games.
These are the kind of shocking statistics that emerged late last year; Things that don’t happen to this City team yet things that are quite plausible if you see them play.
Afterwards, Guardiola admitted PSG were tactically superior, that they had managed to create an overload in midfield and stopped City from getting much meaningful possession, but there were other tenets that underpinned that.
“They were quicker, faster, they win the duels, we could not cope,” he said. “They were fast.”
These are precisely the spaces that have worried the city so much and the things that cannot be solved with smart vibrations alone.
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There has been reason to be cheerful in recent days, bringing the kind of clever power that Haaland spoke of. The great striker has signed a huge nine-and-a-half-year contract, two central defenders, Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis, have been signed, and Omar Marmoush is expected to be announced as a City player on Thursday morning. The city is looking to fix this scenario as temporarily as possible and those measures could improve things in the long run.
But as Guardiola’s new contract and Rodri’s Ballon d’Or presentation before City’s match against Tottenham in November demonstrated, positive emotions are enough to resolve the team’s structural disorders: City lost that match 4-4. 0 and things only briefly improved. games since then.
The big challenge this season, the one compounded by Rodri’s season-long absence due to a knee injury, is the lack of speed and physicality in the midfield. Until this is fixed – at which point you will need to be within the movement window – they can’t really turn things around and get back to their best.
The good news is that City are still looking to sign a central midfielder this month. Mateo Kovacic spent an evening in Paris, but it is his best mobile option in the engine room. He was withdrawn with 20 minutes to go, but it was Ilkay Gundogan, who had the maximum difficulty in front of the fast runners, who replaced him. Kevin De Bruyne continues to demonstrate against the disappearance of the gentile but also had to withdraw.
”The connection with Bernardo (Silva) and Kova was not possible or was not good and after, we could not make the process,” Guardiola said, discussing the tactical issues his side faced. “And in terms of transitions, we cannot cope with them. They are faster and quicker. We have to defend with the ball and we did not do that.”
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Ahead of the game, Guardiola said that both new centre-backs, 19-year-old Reis and 20-year-old Khusanov, are ready for action and that should help to put some of the recurring issues right. Ruben Dias, in and out of the team since November due to injuries, was forced off at half-time, while Matheus Nunes has been used as an unconvincing emergency right-back.
Jack Grealish, who Guardiola called out for his application recently, came off the bench and scored, helping City add goals from the wings, something they have been lacking in this bad run too. That was only after he came on for Savinho, who was frustrating, while Jeremy Doku has picked up another injury.
City still appear to be stuck in the loop that led to all those defeats at the end of last year. Recurring injuries, tired bodies and weak displays. Those things were still evident in victories against Leicester and West Ham, and it turns out that a 6-0 victory at Ipswich was not the end of their struggles.
“We have one last chance against Bruges (on January 29) and if we don’t qualify it is because we don’t deserve it,” said Guardiola.
Not that they can play in the Champions League just yet, but Marmoush looks like he can inject some dynamism into the forward line and perhaps the aggressive Khusanov can drag his team-mates through some battles.
City are at least looking to get out of this mess as temporarily as possible, but there is still a lot to do.
(Top photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)