Pellegrini Falters As City Title Bid Suffers Damaging Blow

Manchester City suffered a 1-4 defeat against Liverpool on Saturday in a match that raised serious doubts about the Blues’ bid to win the Premier League. The truth is that the home side were humiliated at The Etihad in what must surely go down as the worst performance of Manuel Pellegrini’s reign.

When a team suffers as badly as City did in this game, there is never just one person to blame, or only a single facet to consider. However, when Pellegrini gets round to dissecting this display and analysing just what went so wrong, he first needs to look at himself.

It’s easy to say with the benefit of hindsight, but the selection of the first 11 was completely wrong. Vincent Kompany missed out because of a calf injury so, in a bizarre move, the manager opted to start Martin Demichelis at centre-back alongside Eliaquim Mangala. In-form Nicolas Otamendi had to make do with a place on the bench.

Demichelis had previously started just one league match this term – that was a 4-1 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur. It is possible that Pellegrini has spotted that Otamendi and Mangala have both looked better next to Vincent Kompany and decided that Demichelis would be better to shepherd one of them through the game, rather than pairing them together; that partnership has yet to keep a clean sheet.

It backfired spectacularly. Demichelis had an awful evening, constantly tormented by a bristling Liverpool forward-line who immediately got on the front foot and looked like punishing every City error. Mangala fared little better; dreadful decision-making and horrendous positional work led to him steering the ball into his own net for the visitors opening goal. That came after just seven minutes and set the tone for the rest of the game.

With the two centre-backs at sixes-and-sevens, the rest of the defensive line followed suit. It is no exaggeration to suggest that a League One side would be embarrassed with defending of this quality as City demonstrated a lack of cohesion indicative of a group of people who’d never met each other before, never mind one that spends their professional lives working together to avoid this kind of hapless display.

Things were no better in midfield, where the omission of Fernandinho was baffling; leaving him out proved to be another costly error. You can build a strong case to say the Brazilian has been City’s best player this season; he’s been at the heart of everything good his side has done, providing a solid foundation on which everything else can be built. Without him, Yaya Toure looked dreadful and Fernando was completely overrun, horrendously exposed by the lack of support in front of him.

Liverpool cut through the midfield with ease. Yaya Toure and Jesús Navas were substituted at half time, making way for Fernandinho and Delph, but at that point City were already 1-3 down and facing an impossible task to haul themselves back into the game.

For selecting a team that omitted their best available defender and left the midfield outrageously exposed, this defeat really is on Pellegrini. That said, laying blame at the manager’s door shouldn’t detract from the criticism the players deserve. Good footballers walked onto the pitch and seemingly forgot how to pass to each other. They were sloppy in possession and lacked ingenuity. Defeats happen, and standards slip occasionally, but the drop in performance here was drastic enough to be genuinely alarming.

That this is City’s second 4-1 loss of the season is also cause for great concern. A side with their ambition should not be suffering heavy defeats at all, but certainly not twice in the space of 11 games. It suggests that lessons are not being learned. That this was their third defeat in eight league games is also a worrying statistic.

It is possible that Manuel Pellegrini had one eye on the upcoming fixture against Juventus when selecting his side; if that was the case, it was a spectacular misjudgement. City have already progressed from the Champions League group. Whilst finishing top would be a huge boost to their chances of a favourable draw in the next round, to prioritise that over a crucial league game is not far short of madness. If things were to go belly up in Turin, the manager could expect a barrage of well-justified criticism; only time-will-tell how that one pans out.

In the here-and-now, the Chilean must take this as a reminder that you can’t afford to select anything other than the best team for the job and expect to get away with it. Any more defeats of this nature will see supporters turn on him and will add further damage to a faltering title challenge that will need immediate revival in the coming weeks.