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In Manchester City having only the FA Cup to chase we see the product of the club’s failed summer recruitment, ill fortune with injury and the ravage of time to a core of Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering squad.
While Julián Álvarez’s club-record £81.5m sale to Atlético Madrid in the close season bulged transfer coffers, only Savinho was recruited for £30m, alongside the return of the now 34-year-old Ilkay Gündogan for free, as Guardiola decided no major replenishment was needed.
What followed was Rodri suffering anterior cruciate ligament damage in September’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal while Guardiola’s best centre-backs – John Stones, Rúben Dias, Nathan Aké and Manuel Akanji – also suffered injuries and myriad other maladies have ruled out, for varying periods, Oscar Bobb, Jack Grealish, Ederson, Jérémy Doku, Mateo Kovacic, Kyle Walker, Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne. No team could cope with such a rammed treatment room, so being fourth in the Premier League with 11 league games remaining signals the class of Guardiola and his side.
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Rodri returns to Manchester City training
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Rodri has returned to training as the Manchester City midfielder steps up his recovery from the ruptured knee ligament he suffered in September.
The Ballon d’Or winner could be seen taking part in an individual session at the club’s Etihad Campus in a video released by City on Friday evening.
Rodri, 28, ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament in City’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal on 22 September and his absence has been cited as a key factor in Pep Guardiola’s side having fallen 20 points behind Liverpool in the title race while also exiting the Champions League.
It was expected Rodri would miss the rest of the season, but the Spain international has set his sights on returning in time for the Club World Cup, which kicks off in the US on 14 June.
Guardiola has been reluctant to put a timetable on when Rodri might play again. Speaking at the start of the month, the City manager said: “The most important thing for him is to recover well, he is not a teenager but he still has years to play and it’s going to happen if he recovers well.” PA Media
Yet the Catalan’s managerial genius faltered when refusing the suggestion of Txiki Begiristain, City’s sporting director, and Ferran Soriano, the club’s chief executive, to strengthen before the campaign. Guardiola might have added holding midfielder Nico González – a “mini-Rodri”, as the manager has dubbed the Spaniard – the fleet-footed defender Abdukodir Khusanov, menacing forward Omar Marmoush and 19-year-old centre-back Vitor Reis to provide options and cover.
They were instead recruited in January but, by then, “horse” and “bolted” could have been applied to a listing title defence, and integrating them into a side flatlining in confidence proved impossible in the Champions League, where Real Madrid’s 6-3 aggregate playoff schooling eliminated the 2023 winners earlier this month.
In late October, City suffered a 2-1 Carabao Cup exit at Tottenham, and from there the bid to claim a fifth successive league title crumpled. The reverse in north London became the first of five straight defeats, Guardiola’s garlanded players reminded of their mortality.
The manager’s mantra has been that what was achieved last year, or even last week, is meaningless in the quest for excellence. But now, the greatness of that treble-winning side, the team that won four titles in a row, is a regular feature of Guardiola-speak. This shoring up of his position tends to come when he is answering awkward questions about how City have careered off the high peak of excellence occupied for seven successive seasons, or in response to why, despite Gündogan’s creakiness, his one-year contract extension will be triggered.
“I cannot figure out my period here without Gündogan, Bernardo [Silva], Kevin [De Bruyne],” Guardiola said before the fifth-round visit of Plymouth on Saturday. “I’m more grateful than you could ever imagine. The success I’ve had as a manager is impossible without these players.
“The legacy we are going to leave behind for the next ones – the players, sporting directors, CEOs – from the last decade or two, it happens because of these types of players. Not just those three, others too like John [Stones], and players who are not here anymore.” By September, 11 of Guardiola’s squad will be at least 30. Time waits for no one, particularly the elite footballer asked by Guardiola to run, press and reclaim the ball.
So, on Saturday, a team will be sent out against Championship opponents with the aim of ensuring the FA Cup remains winnable for City. Not since Guardiola’s first season in charge, 2016-17, has the man from Santpedor failed to add to the club’s honour roll.
As a player and manager Guardiola’s CV is glittering. Yet there is a streetwise aspect to the 54-year-old when asked how claiming the FA Cup and a Champions League berth would rate in the context of this career. “Qualification for the Champions League will be good. But [there is also] Forest, Newcastle, all the others competing,” he said, ignoring the FA Cup part of the question. Pressed on it, the shutters come down. “The FA Cup is far away – ask at the end of the season when we are one game away,” he said.
On 26 October Southampton were beaten 1-0 to leave City the unbeaten leaders of the Premier League after nine matches, two points better off than Liverpool. From there Guardiola’s men fell off a cliff, a clue to what was incoming illustrated by the nine goals they had conceded by that point. One per game is hardly shabby but Liverpool had allowed only five and the table now shows City on 37 conceded to 26 for Arne Slot’s men, who have played a match more.
Despite a gap of 20 points to Liverpool, Guardiola was curt when asked if the standards he has set cannot be emulated. “Never is [not] impossible,” he said. “What we have done was impossible before we did it.”
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