Manchester City's slump, Pep Guardiola's dilemma

Manchester City's elimination at the hands of Real Madrid in the Champions League playoffs, proves City's difficulty in maintaining the performance of previous seasons. The Champions League trophy must be given up, as well as the Premier League.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola openly acknowledged the weaknesses of his team in Paul Hirst's article in *The Times* titled "Pep Guardiola: Rivals are faster and stronger. Man City can't handle it." "We have to sit together with the doctors, physiotherapists, agents, and clearly understand that some players cannot be fit every three days, every month, or within two months, to play every three days," said Guardiola.

He added that the "Biru Langit" team always reached the later stages of the Champions League, whether it was the quarter-finals or semi-finals. "(But) not this season," said Guardiola again, emphasizing how his team's performance this season was far below their usual standards.

According to him, the reality of his team today must serve as a foundation to prepare the team for the upcoming seasons. "If we want to be there again (able to compete at the elite level in Europe and the Premier League), we need fit and always ready players. That can happen sometimes, but very, very often. The situation demands it, because rival teams are faster, stronger, and we are unable to match that," he said.

City's inconsistency was evident when they mightily defeated Newcastle United with a score of 4-0, Saturday (2/15/2025). However, on Thursday (2/20/2025) Guardiola's team lost 1-3 to Real Madrid in the second match of the Champions League playoff phase, thus being eliminated from the competition of the Blue Continent's elite league.

City performed poorly in Madrid, prompting "El Real" fans to chant "Guardiola, quédate," which means "Guardiola, stay." It was a satirical version of "Can we play your team every week?" For Madrid fans, defeating a team coached by Guardiola feels special, as during his tenure with Barcelona, "Los Blancos" often struggled to win.

The difficult situation faced by City is partly due to the aging lineup of key players. Although in recent years the importance of player regeneration has been emphasized, Guardiola's squad is still considered aging, even after recently adding four young players. By September, 11 members of City's squad will be over 30 years old.

The majority of them, such as Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, and Bernardo Silva, are overshadowed by questions regarding their future. Unfortunately, even though the match against Liverpool in the English Premier League on Sunday (23/2/2025) could have been an opportunity for these senior players to prove their capacity before bidding farewell to City fans, the match ended with a 2-0 victory for "The Reds."

Clearly, two of City's home matches against two tough rivals, namely hosting Real Madrid in the Champions League and Liverpool in the English Premier League, ended in defeat. Before the February 12 match at Etihad Stadium, The Times columnist Paul Hirst seemed to remind City not to allow Real Madrid players to freely control the ball. A simple suggestion, but difficult to implement due to the quality of El Real's squad.

Guardiola understands that the prestige of "El Real" currently rests on the shoulders of their attackers. City's defenders are ready for the onslaught of the sharpest attacking quartet at the moment, namely Jude Bellingham, Vinicius Jr, Rodrygo, and Kylian Mbappe. They have played in 194 international matches, and contributed 60 goals plus 31 assists from 38 Real Madrid matches this season.

"We understand the value of the four of us in the team, especially in terms of how we can make the difference (with and without the ball)," said Rodrygo. Before the second leg in Madrid, Guardiola had already given testimony about how difficult it was to match them.

"It's impossible to control these four players in 90 or 180 minutes. How they combine their game, running after the ball, one-on-one ability, how they keep the ball, all four of them are incredible," Guardiola said.

In addition to being eliminated from the Champions League, City is also struggling in fourth place in the Premier League standings, with 47 points, 20 points behind Liverpool at the top of the standings. The important match against Liverpool at the Etihad also ended in a two-goal defeat. Inevitably, City's spurs that were still expected to disrupt Liverpool's Premier League trophy, did not materialize on the field.

How City struggled to keep up with Real Madrid in the Champions League, and struggled to match Liverpool in the Premier League, with both games held at home, shows that Guardiola's team is not as strong as two seasons ago. At that time, Manchester City became treble winners, namely winning the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup. Unfortunately, this season City only left the chance to win the FA Cup.

With the level of competition between European and English clubs so fierce, it is almost certain that City will find it difficult to achieve drastic improvements, with the existing squad and the short time before the end of the league. The crisis, as Mike Carson wrote in his book "The Manager, Inside The Minds of Football's Leaders", requires a change of direction to revive good fortune.

Manchester City's crisis, the solution is back to Guardiola. According to Carson, there are two key elements in overcoming the crisis, namely choice and action. That choice and action could be by playing more younger players, one of which is Omar Marmoush who just joined in late January 2025, and is quite impressive by scoring three goals in five matches.

Indeed, there is a sense of "gambling" by resting many first-string players who have contributed to City's achievements for years. However, the fruits of this choice and action will be reaped for years to come, with achievements that will once again shine.

We still remember the golden generation squad of the Spanish national team that emerged as the champions of the 2008 Swiss-Austria European Cup, the 2010 South African world champions, and the 2012 Poland-Ukraine European Cup champions. However, as the seasons changed, the star squad with Xavi, Andres Iniesta, David Silva, and Fernando Torres, was then eliminated in the group phase of the 2014 Brazil World Cup. This was the consequence of the delay in cadre formation.

In the club scene, the story of Coach Sam Allardyce who was contracted by Bolton Wanderers in 1999 is also interesting. Allardyce arrived at Bolton when many players were no longer comfortable there, and wanted to leave. "They felt their careers would improve if they could move (from Bolton) immediately, so that they could also improve their income. Everyone knew at that time Bolton was in a financial dilemma, so many of them wanted to move immediately," said Allardyce, quoted by Carson.

When he knew he was in the middle of a crisis, Allardyce acted quickly by retaining assistant coach Phil Brown, who understands the qualities of all the players. So, when it comes to judging which players are worth keeping, and which ones to let go, he trusts Brown 100 percent.

As for the second action, getting some positive results in the league. "If you keep the positive results, the players will feel comfortable again, they will start to think: 'it's not too bad here', and very quickly the team will be in an improvement spiral," said Allardyce again. For Guardiola, the 1-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur on February 27, could be a stepping stone to a series of positive results heading into the upcoming matches.

Player rotation will certainly be one of Guardiola's busy schedules in the next few weeks. With the remaining matches in the Premier League and the FA Cup, the FA Cup could be a priority because there is still a chance to win the only trophy this season. So, the best squad will be played in the FA Cup.

As for the Premier League, the target is simply to stay in the top four of the standings to ensure that they will appear in the Champions League next season. This is certainly a dilemma for Guardiola. However, his experience at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and now at Manchester City, it seems, could be capital to face this crisis.

"I never complained (if there were problems), and pointed out who was at fault. It happened, this is life, this is football, so let's try again. This is also what made us successful: because we always felt that it was never enough. Every three days there was a game and we won, won, won for years. This time we had to do the same and the result was not good," said Guardiola, who tried to remain as calm as possible.

It is worth waiting for, what are Guardiola's choices and actions in the midst of Manchester City's current crisis. City is indeed struggling in fourth place in the Premier League standings. However, there is still hope in the FA Cup. Can Guardiola optimize his squad to achieve the only hope of a trophy in the FA Cup?