I see Mancity’s problem as being that Rodri is injured and Haaland is struggling. What I don’t understand is why De Bruyne only comes off the bench or from a documentary.
Man City’s problems run deeper than Rodri’s failure. Without him, we won the first four league matches without any problems. De Bruyne and Kovacic together constitute the most serious failures. Plus, Foden is still not out of injury form. There is no quality on the wings either. You have to realize that for many players, their time is simply over. Walker no longer has any impact. Neither does Bernardo Silva. And De Bruyne is more injured than fit. Even a Rodri wouldn’t make much difference.
Then there is perhaps the mental wear and tear of Guardiola’s perfectionism and the constant demand to win when you already have almost every record or title in your pocket.
Then lose a few matches and boom, your opponents might also lose the fear they’ve had for the past few years.
Of course, Rodri’s failure is not the only reason, but it is a huge factor when the player responsible for protecting against counter-attacks, pressing and building the play is not available – no other City player can do it, purely in terms of physicality. in world (Site notre bureau spécialisé), no one is as complete as Rodri. This simply creates spaces in front of the defense that are then difficult to defend, creating uncertainty and the resulting errors.
But in general the age structure in midfield is an issue, de Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Gündogan are all at least 30, so at some point the energy you need for Pep’s system is lost, something similar happened a few years ago with Henderson. , Fabinho and See Wijnaldum at Liverpool as well. City simply have the problem that due to Rodri’s absence, these players are no longer just rotating in two positions with Nunes and Kovacic, but in three, meaning only one plays most of the time.
Otherwise, you also have a problem at right-back, where Walker is slowly showing that he is no longer the youngest. These are all contributing factors to this crisis, and the loss of Rodri is also significant. In my opinion, the first four games without him are not a good example. As an opponent, you weren’t sure how Pep wanted to compensate for that. After a while, this is now known and can therefore be better exploited. It’s comparable to a new coach, where the first opponents don’t know exactly how he wants the team to play, but the more games he has coached, the better we know his ideas and can adapt to them.