Manchester City Fan View: City's problems laid bare as Pep throws in the towel

Manchester City all but bowed out of the title race after suffering a heavy 4-0 defeat at Everton’s Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon. Pep Guardiola acknowledged that the 10 point gap to leader’s Chelsea was significant, as good as throwing in the towel on the club’s pursuit of England’s top prize.

Guardiola’s men made the trip to Merseyside knowing that a win was essential to move the Blues back into the top four as well as keep themselves on the coat tails of Chelsea. It hardly looked like coming. After the match, Pep spoke of how well his side played in the first half and it was a thought echoed by many supporters on social media sites after the game. They’d had a good control on the game and, as is so often the case, City had managed to play a lot around Everton’s box – but therein lies the problem.

It’s all well and good playing the match around the box, but eventually you have to do something inside it; that is where City are struggling. True, they had an early shout for a penalty and it was a more than reasonable claim, but referee Mark Clattenburg did not point to the spot.

As has been the case on too many a frustrating occasion this campaign, City worked the ball to the edge of the box or to the wide areas, then had no idea what to do next. The inevitable outcome is either a cross where players not blessed with height are jostling to win headers in packed areas, or a ball played back to the edge of the box. Not that a backwards pass is a bad thing, it’s usually the better option for this team, but then they’re left trying to work out how to break through two deep lines of defence and midfield; the breakdown of the move is alarmingly predictable.

In simple terms, City are too slow in their movement of the ball up the pitch. This is something Guardiola desperately needs to overcome; the defence is clearly a problem, but that is one that can only be truly rectified by recruitment because the current personnel – John Stones being the glaring exception – are not good enough to enact the manager’s plans.

There is a wealth of attacking talent within the City squad that is capable of upping the tempo. Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Agüero, David Silva – the list goes on. It’s not all about the pace of the player, but the speed at which they can think and pass the ball or identify the correct position to take up. It’s not happening at the moment; City come up against disciplined defensive lines, as well as midfield lines that sit so close to the defence when out of possession that they’re barely distinguishable from each other. It’s stifling and the Blues are not dealing well with it I don’t know what the answer is, so don’t expect one here; I can merely see the problem. Maybe that’s something akin to what Pep himself is feeling right now.

Another quandary without an obvious answer is how City manage to concede a goal from their opponents first shot of the game so regularly. It’s happened in four of their last seven matches. Is that purely bad luck or are they somehow culpable for what seems a strikingly odd statistic? Whatever it is, it’s killing the team. Dominate, dominate and dominate some more, all with no reward, then be punished at the first opportunity. The mental toll of that must be exhausting.

It’s increasingly hard to escape the fact that Claudio Bravo’s time in Manchester just is not going well at all; according to Opta the Chilean has conceded 13 of the last 21 shots on target that he has faced in the Premier League. I’ve said previously that he rarely makes absolute howlers so he’s not directly at fault for the goals, but he also doesn’t make great saves. He has yet to make one in a City shirt, certainly not one that has contributed to his side winning points. The rights and wrongs of replacing Joe Hart have been debated to death and I don’t intend to add anything to that here, but it’s a near certainty that Hart would be saving a lot of the shots Bravo is conceding from. As long as the Blues keep suffering demoralising defeats, questions will continue to be asked the sense of that decision.

After six games of the season City were eight points ahead of Chelsea. Now Chelsea lead the Premier League and the Blues lie fifth, 10 points behind the Stamford Bridge side. That’s an 18 point swing in 15 games. It’s pointless to now hold out hope of a swing back in City’s favour. The league focus now has to be on securing a top four finish as, without that, City will struggle to bring in the quality of player Guardiola needs for next term.

In the much, much shorter term, City need a good week in training and a good tactical plan from their manager as the impressive Tottenham come to town next weekend. A loss to the London side would leave Guardiola dealing with some very unwelcome talk of a crisis at his club; he could really do without that.