WHAT transpired at Anfield this weekend was so thoroughly predictable the game might as well have not taken place. Liverpool could have been rewarded the three points thus allowing the rest of us to watch Countryfile full of roast beef and spuds. If the home faithful complained of being deprived of a fun day out we could have arranged for a blue coloured bus to drive around L4 for them to boo at.
A VAR controversy was widely anticipated and so it came to pass. Had it gone in favour of the away side and against the Premier League’s darlings the world would have wobbled off its axis. Spoiler alert, the world did not wobble off its axis. As for Jurgen Klopp’s side and its ferocious support they each ramped up proceedings to that of a European night, as they always do when a Manchester club comes to town, and City duly played to type too, stuttering nervously like an insecure famous person encountering someone they once dated, when they were just plain Norma Jean, who knows all of their dirty secrets.
Unquestionably the most inevitable of all these occurrences was Liverpool’s sensational front three tearing City’s back-line to pieces and if the mental scars from previous visits were not sufficient to have us believe this was a sure thing the makeshift manner of the defence this time certainly was. Bravo in nets is – and always has been – a recipe for disaster. To his left was a third choice full-back. Ahead, protecting the Chilean from himself was a centre-back shorn of confidence and a converted midfielder. Having 60% of your strongest rear-guard absent is enough to prompt jitters going to Norwich or Newcastle. This was Anfield.
Pep Guardiola has escaped FA punishment over his conduct during City's defeat against Liverpool.
[via @MailSport]pic.twitter.com/F6afMznqfU
— Man City | Superbia (@SuperbiaProeIia) November 11, 2019
City and Pep Guardiola deserve some sympathy for this, of course. To lose an influential and brilliant goalkeeper days before their most important game of the season is rotten luck while the long-term unavailability of Aymeric Laporte is so substantial it draws legitimate comparisons to Liverpool hypothetically being denied Virgil Van Dijk for most of a campaign. To a much lesser extent the same applies to Benjamin Mendy though if we’re being harshly honest here so long and regularly has he been injured – and from so early into his City stint – the 25-year-old is now mainly a convenient excuse.
The inherent knowledge that Mendy will be a peripheral figure however, probably until the day he leaves, leads us to the heart of why Guardiola only merits some sympathy and not the full chocolates and carnations. Because the unfortunate truth that Mendy is unreliably prone to injury did not reveal itself in the same moment as Laporte staying down on the Etihad turf against Brighton, mere weeks after the closing of the transfer window. Just as Vincent Kompany’s decision to try player-management in Belgium wasn’t whispered into the Catalan’s ear as his best defender was being stretchered off.
He was pertinently aware of both of these facts over the summer with an entire window to address each concern. To aid the left-back situation Angelino returned as a temporary sticking plaster while – staggeringly – it was decided not to replace Kompany at all and if Liverpool’s deconstruction of a make-do back-line on Sunday was inevitable you can multiply that inexorable pessimism many times over regarding City’s general struggles in defence this term.
When the club’s attempt to sign Harry Maguire ran aground and Guardiola instead opted to fully commit to his reimagining of Fernandinho as a centre-back – an experiment that admittedly had been trialled to good effect last season – all of us knew this was coming; all of us with a millionth of Pep’s footballing insight and know-how. And so, like Michael Oliver overlooking stonewall pens at the Kop end, it has come to pass.
If City concede at their present rate then by May the goals against column will surpass that of 2016/17. In their last two title-winning seasons City conceded more than a single goal in one game on just four occasions. Already they have equalled that and there are still 26 fixtures to go. Moving forward City have become unstable and vulnerable at the back.
The Man City defence looks so makeshift.
Fernandinho has to play in central midfield and you feel the loss doubly with him at CB.
The core of the team lacks strength energy and leadership without the ball.
That said it was a handball. #LIVMCI
— James Allcott (@jamesallcott) November 10, 2019
Not that Fernandinho himself can, or should be blamed for any of this. His performances to date have been largely decent and on Merseyside he was City’s most destructive force. It’s the knock-on effects that are the problem. The knock-on effects have been considerable. With the Brazilian learning the ropes he naturally thinks his way through each ninety minutes and this leaves Stones or Otamendi as the organiser-in-chief. Neither are suitable at all for this role, a role previously reserved for Laporte or Kompany. So it is that City’s defence is made up of four individuals each enduring individual travails.
Oh we knew this was coming didn’t we? The exasperation only grows in its intensity with the suspicion that Guardiola quietly relished the prospect of transforming another player; pulling off another masterstroke. For he has form for this.
In the Champions League final of 2009 Yaya Toure partnered Pique at the back due to a trio of injuries and suspensions. Yaya put in a Toure-de-force. Later Javier Mascherano was famously remodelled as a centre-back and the trophies only kept on coming. At Bayern, Javi Martinez was similarly converted to huge success. In fact such a signature move this is for Guardiola that as long ago as 2016 the Times was speculating about Fernandinho becoming the next midfielder to change his skill-set and drop back twenty yards.
Only with the Brazilian there are three crucial differences to the examples above, four if you include the already mentioned dearth of elite quality around him. Firstly, there is his age to consider. Fernandinho is 34 and with Mascherano once admitting that it took him a full year to adapt it is hard to find the logic in teaching an old dog new tricks when the benefits will not be reaped. Next season he could well be magnificent and highly-attuned to the task but what’s the good of that when his legs start to go? After becoming the player City need him to be he will probably be ushered aside for a new, expensive specialist anyway.
Then there is the Premier League to factor in. At the risk of sounding a bit Stoke-on-a-wet-Wednesday we do things differently here and the frantic pace and genuine threat posed by lower ranked teams means such experimentation is a far more riskier proposition in England than in La Liga or Germany. Lastly – and this cannot be stated loudly enough – it is just so, so unnecessary.
The purchasing of a top quality, home-grown centre-back this summer would have most likely resulted in City’s dominance continuing unabated. Now it is being jeopardised. It is a golfer changing a perfect swing. It is Roger Federer starting to prioritise coming into the net. Ultimately though, it comes down to having to take the rough with the smooth of having Pep Guardiola as your coach, a deal that all Manchester City fans will gladly take because, simply put he is true innovator and a bona fide genius.
It’s just that the problem with geniuses is occasionally they don’t know when to stop being a genius. yeah, How costly this blind-spot is only time will tell.
