Why Manchester City Shouldn’t go for the Rebuild

I think most fans will agree that Manchester City hasn’t really lived up to expectations this season. Most people believed during the pre-season and the first few weeks of the season that Man City should be in a dominant situation. The club had a great offseason, bringing in Otamendi and De Bruyne, two of the biggest signings in the Premier League offseason.

The club started off very well, winning 6 games in a row with a string of clean sheets. The team looked lethal on the offensive, and compact in defence. With the other pre-season favorite Chelsea sputtering out of the gate, and with City sitting in second behind only Leicester a quarter of the season in, for a moment I thought Manchester City were confidently in a position to win the league.

Of course, City’s title challenge quickly fell apart shortly afterwards. Critical players kept getting injured left and right, the club began dropping points everywhere, and as the schedule got tougher in February and March, Manchester City looked like a club about to fall over the edge. City were able to bring home a Capital One Cup and making the quarter finals in the Champions League, but for a club that were the obvious preseason favorites, it is obvious that the club did not live up to their lofty preseason expectations.

With a new manager coming in, the question is whether Manchester City should rebuild, tear the team down, and give the prospects some more time. In other words, if the club isn’t on the level to really challenge for trophies right now, perhaps it would be smart to ditch the high priced stars and build for the future. Earlier this season, I was strongly against this mentality. I believed that Manchester City should have pushed ahead and focused on winning now, the spine of the club is currently in its prime, and the club is exactly poised in the perfect position to win.

Despite the poor performance in the league this year, I still stand by the opinion that Manchester City shouldn’t look towards tearing down the team for a rebuild. The true talent level of the club is still exceptional, on paper there are few teams in the whole world who can put out a stronger lineup than Manchester City,

It is true that the club has some serious structural deficiencies. The midfield is seriously aging and lacking quality. Yaya Toure is probably on his way out, and at his age, Fernandinho isn’t someone who the club can build around for the future. The defensive side of the team is cause for major concern, and we will probably need a new left back soon. However, the spine of the team is still very solid, outside of probably Barcelona, the Man City attack is second to none and can hold its own against any other in the world. Joe Hart, Otamendi, and Kompany are an extremely capable defensive core that (when healthy) could be considered world class.

It could be argued that Manchester City’s dreadful performance this season was due to one-time unexpected factors. Despite probably some of the best depth in the league, City was hit with an astonishing amount of injuries, forcing the starting lineup to become what is almost a revolving door, with players moving in and out every match day and switching positions just to cover for another teammate who went down with injuries.

We can also argue that a major contributor to City’s underperformance is due in part to Pellegrini’s tactical issues. I don’t want to sound like an armchair manager here, but perhaps Pellegrini’s system is no longer suitable for the team. We have been repeatedly unable to create good chances and to stop our opponents from creating good chances this season, and it isn’t really a stretch to think that Guardiola, arguably one of the best coaches in football today, can take this team, and with a new tactical system, fix up some of the bigger issues that Pellegrini’s system hasn’t been able to fix.

In my opinion, a major reason why City is underperforming this season is well, bad luck. Too many of the players just got injured at the same time during critical parts of the schedule. The team is underperforming, but I don’t think it is a talent problem. Give Pellegrini a large enough war chest for him to bring in a few players of his liking while perhaps selling a few aging and underperforming members of the team, and we can easily get back into contention for the Premier League title.

There has been calls for Manchester City to rebuild, to perhaps emulate our cross town rivals Manchester United or perhaps even Liverpool and tear down the team for a total rebuild. If we judge the team solely on the basis of this season, that could be warranted perhaps. The defending is atrocious, the attack is weak and tepid sometimes, and we are 15 points behind first place Leicester with 8 games to go. However, I am convinced that the team is playing far below their true talent level, and with Guardiola at the helm next season, the club should still push and ahead and remain in a “win now” mentality.