That Tadic incident was symptomatic of a defensive malaise that's grown and grown over the course of the last 18 months. When we steamed our way to the title in 2014 most teams had never seen such attacking football and were shit scared of us as a consequence. Defensively then we weren't overly tested. But as always happens in football, once you've been schooled you go away and do your homework, and the number of sides we face now who have watched videos of our defeats and set themselves up to exploit our defensive weakness on the counterattack accordingly - either via a high press or bus parking - is nobody's business.
There is mitigation in that we have the worst injury list in the division (and one which includes our best players with monotonous regularity), and there is also mitigation in the quality of the opposition we are now facing compared to 2 years ago. It really is the most competitive league in the world; everyone has money to burn and there are players at most other clubs now that I would happily see in the current City squad. Mane and Pelle, Payet and Moses, Stones and Barkley, Arnautovic and Shaqiri, even Bournemouth's Matt Ritchie was a constant fucking menace against us. That's where the excuses end though.
We went through the manager's tactical shortcomings ad nauseum after the Liverpool debacle (particularly the Ya Ya in a midfield two obsession), and I cited variously “West Ham away last season, where we went with Ya Ya and Fernando as an immobile duo in the middle, Silva a fish out of water down the left, and Navas hugging the right touchline, and it led to open season on Mangala, Bayern away in the Allianz where Ya Ya allowed Boateng to carry the ball from his own half to the edge of our area completely unmolested time and time again, the absolute debacle at home to CSKA with Ya Ya in a midfield two, a game that he ended up getting sent off in, Liverpool away where we were run ragged, Barca at home where in the absence of Ya Ya he went with Milner and Fernando as a two and we got made to look like rank amateurs, the fiasco at the Swamp where Ya Ya, again in a midfield two, made Hair Bear look like Usain Bolt in a performance of almost criminal negligence, Monchengladbach where we were so overrun that Ya Ya had to be hoicked at half time, and then the same thing again last Saturday against the dippers”, as examples of piss poor judgment on the manager’s behalf. Defensively though they were not exclusive. I could have added the shambles at home to Seville, where the opposition went 2 on 2 against Zabaleta and Navas, a pairing who speak the same language and who have played together dozens of times, yet were undone by simple give and go's time after time after time, both of them going after the man with the ball like 10 year olds or alternatively both trying to block the runner leaving the man with the ball free to race forward. And then there was today. A 35 year old defending (calamitously) on the half way line, whilst Pellegrini opted to play 3 lightweight attacking midfielders behind a lummox of a centre forward, a quartet that provided no more than about a third of the intense pressing needed to prevent the opposition breaking free to run at poor old Martin Dimichelis.....and I won't even start on the Fernandinho substitution (again).
It's hard to comprehend what's going on out there at times at the moment, and if you ask me right now if we'll finish top 4, it's a 'no'. When we started winning trophies I remember Taggart commenting on the sheer physicality of the City team (something that had been a feature of all his united sides - I think there was one year we played them they had something like 7 players who were 6ft 2' or bigger - De Gea 6ft 4', Camelgob 6ft 3', Vidic 6ft 2', Smalling 6ft 5', Valencia 6ft 2', Fletcher 6ft 2', Van Persie 6ft 2'), when we had Kompany, Lescott, Kolarov, Toure, Gaz Baz, Balotelli and Dzeko available, and additionally supported by stocky little balls of muscle in the shape of Zabaleta, Tevez, De Jong and Milner, and whilst size isn't the be all end all, I look at the City squad today and, defensively in particular, it seems very fragile both physically and mentally. Sterling lightweight, Navas lightweight, KDB lightweight, Silva lightweight, Nasri lightweight. Great to watch when vastly inferior opposition's standing back and letting you play, but easily cowed and beaten when the opposition's up for it.
For me Pellegrini is a busted flush. Tactics, team selections, substitutions, even purchases (in terms of the balance of the squad as a whole), have been questionable for a long time now, to the point that he is almost getting the worst out of the players at his disposal rather than the best. As to getting rid of him, sadly I don't see how we can. If we have bet our entire holding on Pep, then no-one is going to want to come to City as a 6 month stop gap, not unless you want a fucking idiot like Redknapp or Warnock in charge. All we can do is pray that the injuries abate and Kun and Kompers somehow sustain an acceptable level of fitness between now and May to drag us over the line.
