Manchester City have not lived up to their own lofty standards this season. The defending champions are currently posting their lowest points per game since Guardiola became manager in 2016 at an anaemic 1.78 points per game which would mean they would end the season on 68 points, 10 points lower than Pep’s lowest total up to this point.
City’s decline has been surprising and drastic. Their decline has coincided with but is not entirely the result of the injury to midfield lynchpin and Balon D’Or winner Rodri whose anterior cruciate ligament injury means he will not play until next season.
Rodri has played at least 46 games a season since he joined the club, 33 in the Premier League and 80% or more of the available minutes in the last 4 seasons. He has been indispensable to Pep Guardiola and it was expected they would struggle without him, however, no one saw what came next, City kept up the results for the next month winning 6 of the next 7 before a 2-1 loss to Tottenham Hotspur in the Carabao Cup.
Then all hell broke loose, City lost the next four and went 13 games without a victory in total, something you could never imagine happening to a Guardiola team. Since that wretched run, Manchester City have won five out of their last seven and have brought in reinforcements in the transfer market most notably Omar Marmoush. The question remains what has actually gone wrong?
Well, injuries have played their part, Kyle Walker, Nathan Ake, John Stones and Rúben Dias have all missed significant time. This has meant that Rico Lewis has been given more responsibility and Joško Gvardiol has barely had a chance to rest and it has shown. Gvardiol leads the side in errors with 4 and is joint 12th in Europe’s top 5 leagues. This is also quite high for the Croatian as he has committed only 6 errors in the 3 previous seasons combined showing that he is struggling on an individual level.
From a numbers perspective, the defence has lost its way. Manchester City have always defended with the ball, they pass enemies to death, deny them the ball, and push them as far from the goal as possible and this has resulted in one of the best defensive teams in Europe. This season that has not worked.
Last season Manchester City had the 2nd best defence in the Premier League this season 8 other teams have conceded fewer goals at the time this was published . In fact, Manchester City rank 56 out of 96 in Europe’s top 5 leagues.
In the last 4 years their lowest ranking has been 18th all the way in 2020 which is also the lowest rank of the Guardiola era. This just highlights how bad City have been by their usual high standards.
Using last season as a benchmark Manchester City are conceding 1 extra shot on target a game and 0.5 xG more the equivalent of 1 big chance. This just shows how much more their defence has been exposed.
Their errors per game have nearly doubled moving from 0.45 to 0.83 this may be why they are struggling to be as compact, and the increased errors are not likely to help their defensive issues.
There has also been a slight drop in attack with their xG per game reducing from 2.11 to 1.89 it might not seem like much but over the course of the season combined with their decreased defensive solidity it means they are creating 0.45 xG more than their opponents per game down from 1.18 last season.
The kicker is City are also converting at a lower rate. Last season for every expected goal City were scoring 0.36 more this season it is down to 0.11 meaning the team as a whole is slightly less clinical. With the defence a mess this has contributed significantly to their issues.
The defensive rebuild has started in earnest with the recruitment of centre-backs Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis both U21. Khusanov has had a rocky start but with Rodri set to return a few midfield reinforcements to replace the ageing Kevin De Bruyne, and İlkay Gündoğan, the Cityzens will likely be back at their best sooner rather than later.
