Manchester City’s rollercoaster of a season continued on Saturday as they relinquished the lead twice in their 2-2 draw against Brighton at the Etihad.
Pep Guardiola’s side missed the chance to climb back into the top four, and could drop as low as sixth in the table if Newcastle win their game in hand.
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On the latest episode of The Totally Football Show, James Richardson was joined by Daniel Storey, Tim Spiers and Jay Harris to discuss City’s stop-start season and whether Guardiola’s side could possibly miss out on Champions League qualification.
A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on “The Totally Football Show” feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
James: On Saturday Man City hosted Brighton at the Etihad. The two teams lying fifth and seventh are separated by just one point. This looked like a key match in the race for the Champions League places.
Tim: This run of two matches — now they’re out of Europe and just have the FA Cup to play for — Pep surely would have thought, ‘Forest away and Brighton at home is a chance to exert our authority and cement a top four or five place.’ But they’re just consistently surprising us in a bad way. I’m still surprised they can’t string any kind of run together whatsoever. They spent £140million in January, let’s not forget, to try and remedy some of these issues.
I know they bought a couple of players for the future, but they also reinforced the whole spine of the team and they’re still not getting any better. Brighton should have won this, they had some fantastic chances. Carlos Baleba in particular had a chance from 12 yards out, Jack Hinshelwood had one and Yankuba Minteh had one from six yards, although it might have been offside.
James: Nico Gonzalez hit one off the post just before that didn’t he?
Tim: He did but Brighton deserved to win this. It’s remarkable that Guardiola hasn’t found a solution to the Rodri-shaped hole. They just can’t control games and they can’t put their foot on the ball for 10 minutes and shut the opposition out. They’ve been incapable of it since Rodri’s injury.
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I remember watching Newcastle away, the first game without Rodri, and they just couldn’t get a hold of the ball to stop Newcastle’s momentum or pressure. But their run-in is really good and they don’t play anyone in the top seven now for the rest of the season. But you still don’t quite trust them to get this over the line.
Daniel: For the first time in his managerial career, Guardiola has now conceded 40 goals in a league season and we still have nine games left. It speaks to what Tim says about the lack of control and just how long this has been going on with nobody sorting it out.
You don’t trust them to keep clean sheets at all. And at their best, they aren’t a team that aims just to outscore the opposition. They do try and control games. And as Tim says and exactly right, there’s just none of that there right now.
Jay: Just simply looking at that starting 11 for Man City, and I know they had people like Phil Foden, Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish on the bench, but it’s not amazing when you look at it. City used to possess a bit of a fear factor about them but that went long ago this season. You look at that starting 11 and I wouldn’t say it’s top four or five.
James: You don’t think they’re going to hang onto the top five?
Jay: They might do. But when I look at that starting 11 you’ve got Rico Lewis, Khusanov, Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol. It’s a good defence but it’s not an amazing defence. Gonzalez and an ageing İlkay Gundogan in central midfield. Jeremy Doku is one of the best dribblers I’ve ever seen, but there’s still a question mark over his end product. The same with Savinho. Then Marmoush and Haaland up front. I don’t think that’s amazing.
James: The results bear you out. Tim, are they going to make the top five?
Tim: I don’t know, it’s like when Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United and it was like, ‘Oh, they weren’t that great after all.’
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Jay: Possibly, yeah…
Tim: They’re constantly perplexing to me. I’m still shoving Man City players in my fantasy team and expecting them to come good. Jay’s shaking his head… rookie error (laughs). But like I said they have a good run in and are still pretty good against teams at the bottom end of the table so they’ll probably nick the top five.
You can listen to full episodes of The Totally Football Show for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
(Top Photo: Matt McNulty/Getty Images)
