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Manchester City expert Steven McInerney from Esteemed Kompany is concerned about the Citizens’ hopes of qualifying for the Champions League following last weekend’s “uninspiring” 0-0 draw with rivals Manchester United at Old Trafford.
The 196th Manchester derby was certainly one to forget, as the pre-season-friendly-like contest severely lacked quality, energy and intensity from both sides who were not prepared to take any risks and were ultimately content with settling for a share of the spoils.
In what has been a turbulent and disappointing 2024-25 campaign for Man City overall, Pep Guardiola‘s side have now failed to win 16 of their 31 Premier League matches this season (D7 L9) and are in danger of failing to secure a top-five finish.
At the time of writing, Man City sit fifth in the table, but they will drop down to sixth place if Newcastle United win at least one of their two games in hand – the first of those is against relegation-threatened Leicester City on Monday night.
Despite dropping two points against a struggling, goal-shy Man United side languishing in the bottom half of the table, Guardiola stated after the match that he is not concerned about Man City’s Champions League qualification prospects, a view McInerney ‘aggressively disagrees’ with.
McInerney told Sports Mole: “I am [concerned]. You should be! I love Pep, but I don’t know if he’s doing the whole thing where he doesn’t really tell the truth in press conferences because he wants to defend his players.
Guardiola and co should be concerned about CL qualification prospects
“At the same time, he also came out and said [Matheus] Nunes wasn’t smart enough to play in midfield – which I agree with for what it’s worth, and by that he means football intelligence and spatial awareness.
“But the point is if you’re going to be that blunt about a player, you can only presume he’s being blunt and honest about his summation of that game. That is not good enough. I really aggressively disagree with that.
“If that’s the level, we are not going to get Champions League football. I love [Guardiola] dearly, he knows a billion times more than all of us combined about football, he truly does, I just don’t get how someone can sit there and go: ‘Oh yeah that level will be enough to get Champions League football’. No it won’t, it just won’t.
“If we play [as we did] against United, difficult conversations will be had because we will not be getting Champions League football with that level of football”.
McInerney labelled the stalemate with Man United as the ‘worst ever’ Manchester derby in his lifetime when reacting to the result on his Esteemed Kompany channel. He still stands by that opinion and was disappointed to see “a shocking lack of ambition” from the Citizens against an opponent that was “there for the taking”.
“Even when City were getting spanked when I was a kid, with Chelsea’s scoring hat-tricks and all that against us, there was still quality from United,” said McInerney. “At least United batted us and they scored some goals and there was some entertainment, [but Sunday’s game] was so bad.
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‘It felt frustrating… United were there for the taking’
“This was such a poor, uninspiring, drab, damp squib of a game of football. There was absolutely nothing to it. No spark. United had some slight decent moments, but even when they got towards our goal, the only reason they didn’t score is because they were abject in front of goal.
“United’s decision-making was terrible. They even conspired to try and give City chances. They were giving the ball away sloppily at the back a few times, but City’s response to getting the ball 30 yards from United’s goal was just run to nowhere and get tackled. Both teams were utterly clueless going forward. A shocking lack of ambition.
“It felt frustrating as a City fan watching City revert back to the winter version of Manchester City… To go from a team (including the January signings) much more physically capable and much more defensively in tune with each other, to then just going back to the old players again… I understand why Guardiola has this sort of loyalty to them, but as a City fan it felt frustrating.
“I do think City have been better, not perfect, but definitely more functional and more 2025 in terms of how we play since the new signings have come in and when we’ve played a bunch of 20, 23, 25, 26-year-olds. It just felt younger it felt like we were looking forward to the future.
“The likes of Nico Gonzalez, [Abdukodir] Khusanov and Savinho should have played at Old Trafford… For me sat there watching us go back to the team and the lineup that suffered so badly during the winter, and put City on a historically bad run of form, I didn’t understand the logic of it.
“There was absolutely nothing, genuinely nothing, and no creativity. It looked slow, uninspired and it felt sort of self-inflicted… Guardiola chose that side. I love the man, but I just really could not understand it. I think United were there for the taking.”
Press play on the video at the top of this article to hear the full discussion.
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