‘Never seen a Guardiola team this bad’ – Man City under ‘real pressure’
Pep Guardiola is in unfamiliar territory.
His Manchester City side’s current malaise continued on Wednesday as they were beaten by Juventus to leave their progress to the Champions League knockouts far from certain.
But the result’s place in their recent run of form makes for alarming reading.
The latest defeat means they have managed just one win in their last 10 games, losing seven games during that run.
It would be foolish to write them out of anything at this stage of the season, but Guardiola knows he needs to find a way to end this poor run of form sooner rather than later.
Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand said on TNT Sports: “I think we are still going to be surprised given what they have done in recent years.
“They have been a formidable team, they won four Premier Leagues on the bounce, they have a history of being very successful.
“But we just have not seen a Pep Guardiola side in general ever be this bad. He has to find a way of galvanising this team and reinstalling some form and confidence.
“They are under real pressure now.”
The statistics behind Manchester City’s recent run of form highlight that it has gone beyond a blip to become a real cause for concern.
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Since the start of November, Manchester City have conceded more goals (20) across all competitions than any other team from Europe’s big five leagues.
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City have conceded two or more goals in each of their last seven away games across all competitions, as many as in the previous 46 combined.
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They have conceded nine goals in their last three Champions League games (after four v Sporting and three v Feyenoord), having kept a clean sheet in their first three this season.
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It is the first time in Guardiola’s managerial career that he has seen his side concede more than twice in three consecutive Champions League matches (across all clubs).
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They have gone eight games without a clean sheet away from home in all competitions; the joint-longest such run of Guardiola’s managerial career (also a run of eight in October 2016).
After the Juventus loss, Guardiola chose to reflect on the positives: “We played good, really, really good.
“We concede few, some transition happened but I am so proud for these players. They give everything and they tried and now we live in this period and hopefully we can change results.”
But ex-Manchester City defender Nedum Onouha said on Match of the Day: “They found it very hard to break [Juventus] down and Erling Haaland himself was frustrated.
“To make it even worse there were times where City were very open. They seemed so stretched.”
