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A defiant Pep Guardiola has told his Manchester City players to fight to protect their legacy as the manager insisted their current crisis will not turn into a “big mess” and dismissed suggestions his team was too old.
Feyenoord travel to the Etihad Stadium in Champions League action on Tuesday evening with City under pressure to end an alarming run of five successive defeats, including Saturday’s 4-0 capitulation at home to Tottenham.
Eight points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool and 10th in the Champions League group, outside the automatic qualifying places for the knockout stages, Guardiola believes it is inevitable that a team that has won so much ends up lowering its level.
But, in a rallying call, the City manager urged his champions not to give up their crown without a fight. “We come from there [the very top] so we can only go down if we lose,” Guardiola said. “We deserve a little patience when we lose games. It won’t be a big waste.
“You are defending a heritage, a tradition, an achievement and it is so difficult to manage. If we can’t do that, let’s try to focus on short periods and win the next games. What I want is commitment from the players to continue doing what we have to do. We will congratulate the team that wins our crown because they deserve it, not because we deliver it to them, give it to them.
Without midfield talisman Rodri, out for the season, and several key defenders, including Rúben Dias, Guardiola admitted City had been vulnerable in transition and had struggled to deal with long aerial balls, plus having lost too many duels in dangerous positions.
De Bruyne: “We seem a bit not really soft but a bit”
Midfielder Kevin De Bruyne admitted there were players “who shouldn’t be playing but they still did, even with an injury” and that it had been too “chaotic” on the pitch with City “almost everywhere” during defeats. by Sporting, Brighton and Bournemouth.
“It seems like we don’t really deal with the moments when things go wrong in a match,” De Bruyne said. “We are creating chances, but the main problem at the moment concerns the two boxes. We concede too easily and we don’t score the goals we should have.
“We seem a little, I don’t know, not really soft but a little. Of course, everyone is a little depressed by the five defeats, but we have to accept it and move on.
De Bruyne said City’s leadership group had called a dressing room summit before this poor campaign and did not need another “crisis meeting”. “I don’t think this team needs a lot of team talk,” he said.
“We probably have about two crisis meetings a year. So even last year or the year before, there’s always been a point where we talk to the team and some people want to say what the expectations are, what we need to do or change. Every time we have a good season, that happens too.
“So, you know, we’ve had a conversation before, but it was way before then. So I don’t think we need another one right now. People know what’s going on.
Several of City’s most experienced players, including Kyle Walker and Ilkay Gundogan, are in poor form. With nine players aged 30 or over and three more set to reach that milestone next year, City’s squad looks in need of a refresh.
Guardiola: ‘I’m not going to change’
Guardiola, however, refuted the idea that age or reduced motivation after six titles in seven years were factors behind the crisis.
“There are players aged 30 and over 30 who are performing incredibly well. There are 23-year-old players who are not performing well,” he said. “It depends on the performances. I don’t see the age.
“The analysis, from my point of view, at the moment is not that we are not getting results because we have 12 players. [around the 30-something age bracket]. Of course they can fall. Tell me about a team in the world that can’t go down a little after being exceptional for many years.
“Now it’s easy to say because we lost five games. It’s easy for the manager to say the mentality isn’t there or he doesn’t want it or it’s because we’re not running. I don’t believe it. I learned in these kinds of situations not to do micro-analysis because that would be a mistake.
“If we continue to lose games we will be eighth or ninth in the table because it is very close, but we are still second. Maybe I didn’t expect to lose five in a row, but a decline should happen after the success we had. It’s normal.
“But the analysis will take place in December if we have to do something [in the January transfer window] or at the end of the year to be more solid next season.
Guardiola also said he did not intend to change much. “What should I change? » he said. “If I had to change from my first season [at City] maybe we wouldn’t win six Premier Leagues in seven years. I’m not going to change. Thanks to the success we have had, we firmly believe in the process and the fundamentals that we must implement.
“What we have to believe is that the injured players return to their best form, the players who played a lot of minutes due to injuries are resting. A good result that can change our minds. For the moment , this will pass.
