Former England manager Fabio Capello has suggested Manchester City players ‘can’t stand Pep Guardiola anymore’ after the club suffered their seventh defeat in ten games on Wednesday night.
City appeared to have stopped the rot with a convincing 3-0 victory at home to Nottingham Forest, which followed a wretched run of seven matches without a win in all competitions.
But the Premier League champions were then held to a 2-2 draw away to struggling Crystal Palace before Juventus consigned Guardiola’s men to a 2-0 defeat in the Champions League.
The loss in Turin came as a major blow to City’s hopes of advancing into the knockout phase of Europe’s premier competition, with the club now languishing down in 22nd place in the table.
City are also well off the pace in the English top flight and trail runaway league leaders Liverpool by seven points ahead of Sunday’s eagerly anticipated Manchester derby at the Etihad.
‘Everyone faces City now with more courage because they pass the ball around without any sense, they always play the same game,’ ex-England, Juventus and Real Madrid boss Capello said on Sky Sport Italia following City’s latest setback.
‘Erling Haaland didn’t receive a cross. Do you want to try to do something different?
‘They once had players with more quality who dribbled, now they are flat. They wait to recover the ball and start a counter-attack.
‘City are slow in their mind and in their game, they no longer have the speed they had before. There are no players who make the difference, they don’t have the anger and physicality that put their opponents in difficulty.
‘Beforehand, they lost the ball and won it back immediately but it’s no longer like that.’
According to Capello, City’s players are no longer competing with the same ‘dynamism’ that saw them blow away opposition teams away in recent seasons.
‘Maybe after all these years they can’t stand Guardiola anymore because at a certain point Pep has nothing new to give them,’ he added.
‘I repeat, Haaland hasn’t received a cross: they don’t know how to trigger it. They no longer have the dynamism they once had.
‘The only one who gets past his man is [Jeremy] Doku but then he doesn’t know what to do.
‘[Kevin] De Bruyne is no longer the same, [Phil] Foden must be reinserted into the centre of the game.
‘The situation is serious and honestly I wouldn’t know what advice to give Pep to get out of it’.’
Guardiola – who last month agreed a contract extension at the Etihad – admitted he was questioning his own methods in the aftermath of City’s loss at Juve.
‘Of course I question myself but I’m stable in good moments and bad moments,’ the Spaniard told reporters.
‘I try to find a way to do it. I’m incredibly honest. If we play good [I say] we played good and today I thought we played good.
‘Our game will save us. We can do it. We conceded few chances compared to the Nottingham Forest game that we won. We’re making the right tempo.
‘We missed the last pass, did not arrive in the six-yard box [at the right time] or have the composure at the right moment.
‘But I love my team. This is life, it happens. Sometimes you have a bad period but I’m going to insist until we’re there.’
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