Pep Guardiola ‘s Manchester City are going through their worst moment since the Catalan manager landed at the Etihad Stadium. Since that summer of 2016 when the manager arrived at the Manchester team to take City to a new dimension, they had never before had such a negative run of results as the current one.
With the defeat suffered against Liverpool (2:0) and the latest defeat at home for the derby (1:2) which the correct score was predicted by feedinco, falling 9 points behind Liverpool in terms of the fight for the Premier League title, there are 6 games that City have lost out of the last 7 they have played in all competitions. The other was the draw against Feyenoord in the Champions League, going from a 3-0 in favour in the 74th minute to a 3-3 when the final whistle blew.
Having said all this, you might think that City have simply suffered bad luck, but that is not the case. This bad run of form is due to a footballing problem, because Guardiola has completely lost his team in a November that was more than black after having previously raised doubts against Fulham and Wolves despite winning on both occasions.
Proof that the bad run of form is more about football than bad luck is confirmed by the data on clear goal chances for and against during these 7 games. City have had 21 while they have suffered 39. In fact, they have not scored more than their rival in any of these games, so it can be said that this Manchester City is less fierce and much more vulnerable than it has been over these years.
The number of goals scored in these 7 matches has been 7 in favour and 19 against, a record that is even worse, and more worrying, than the number of goal-scoring opportunities created. Not even the change of goalkeeper, when Guardiola opted for Stefan Ortega at the expense of Ederson last Sunday, was enough to help him find the clean sheet that he is surely looking for.
Life without Rodrigo
Inevitably, one figure is conspicuous by his absence as one of the explanations for Manchester City’s poor run of results: Rodrigo Hernandez. Before his injury, there was already evidence of the importance of the Spanish midfielder in this Manchester City and without him the team would suffer.
But we must also remember that Rodri was injured against Arsenal and between that game and the start of this bad run of 7 disastrous matches City recorded 6 wins and 1 draw. Rodrigo is important in this team, of course he is, and his absence is one of the reasons why the results are so bad, but the problems go far beyond the absence of the Spanish midfielder.
Manchester City is going through a very difficult time, the train of the fight for the Premier seems to have escaped them and to make matters worse, looking at the six-fingered gesture at Anfield, surprising and uncharacteristic of Pep, Guardiola is really irascible. However, they are still a great team capable of overcoming this setback and much more, although they need to wake up and the sooner the better.
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