Pep Guardiola - 2024/25

Not in the engine room…the most important part of Pep’s team

2016….A peak Silva, Fernandinho, De Bruyne and a 25 year old Gundogan.

2025…..Ageing De Bruyne, Gundogan and Bernardo….plus Kovacic who is no where near the level required….plus Lewis

2025..... Foden, Rodri. PL Player of the Year last year and Ballon D'or winner.

The cupboard is hardly bare.
 
A Rodri who is not available this season and might not come back the same player…..and Foden although very good is nowhere near to David Silva….especially in midfield.
I'm not talking about this season. I said we have better players than we had when we arrived, and that he took 2 seasons to build a brilliant team from then.
 
thats good he recognizes it. football is changing and for a while other teams in PL tried to copy us with playing out from back, inverted fullback to give advantantage in midfield there is a new wave forming now building on sheer pace, high energy, high workrate, quick football which does not want to keep the ball as much but when they have it they want to make it count and ready to throw people forward.

what we try to do now with our slower more control based approach, is being found out a bit of course its also because of the mistakes we did in squad building since treble as this approach still not dead but certainly dead with so many tired players nd not enough pressers.

we used to press and work bloody hard out of possession and many opponent managers said City is too dangerous not because of the great players we have but because we work as hard if we would have mediocre players trying to even thing out by working harder and that coupled with the great players we had resulted in some great footballl and brutal amount of trophies.

now thats completely gone, the working harder part. no press, no trackback, no intention to win the ball back quick, no midfield protection for defence. etc we are bullied by lesser squads who work harder, get stuck in, win duels, can run etc.

if we would have these still our approach still go go up against the new direction football is going, but for it to work we really need players in their prime and not half of the first 11 basically past their prime some are closer to pension even.

Ederson, Walker, KDB, Gundo, Kovacic, Stones, Grealish all past their best. Add Rodri fully out injured, Foden overall form this season fell off a cliff, and many more injuries to defenders who cannot stay fit while Doku, Savinho are not lethal enough (yet?).
add in recruitment spent big on Phillips, Nunes instead of high quality.
add in Pep's small squad mantra despite the growing schedule.

lot of things to fix here. I just wish we would have strengthen hard and well while we were on top to make some transfers with all the money we earned which makes rivals sit up and take notice and think wow they won the treble and add this and this and this to the squad?
 

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