First it was Rodri’s injury. Then Kevin De Bruyne’s decline. Then Phil Foden’s form. At one point it was something about Erling Haaland. And Pep Guardiola did not escape criticism either.
In truth, Manchester City’s problems have been numerous this season and no one reason can explain or excuse a campaign of relative failure.
No trophies. No titles. No post-season celebrations where Pep’s on confetti cannon duty, Haaland and Ederson take charge of the champagne soaking, and Kyle Walker turns MC. Scrapping for Champions League football was as good as it got. Where do you even start with that?
One positive will be that the scale of the rebuild has been extensively revealed. Guardiola might profess to only want a small group, and there are obvious merits to having a highly-motivated, compact squad – but only if it is filled with genuine competitors who can play 40-50 games a season.
Too many Man City players fell below the standard this season, behaving more like squad players than seasoned champions. De Bruyne, Foden and Haaland might well be characterised under that banner, albeit the latter’s 24 goal contributions (21G, 3A) is hardly mediocre and all have endured injury patches. As a collective they were far from the worst offenders.
Something might have been salvaged from the wreckage if City were able to deny Crystal Palace their greatest day in May’s FA Cup final. Instead, Guardiola’s side stayed true to this season’s only assurance: a commitment to underwhelm.
Eberechi Eze’s counter-attack winner was the obvious way the underdogs were going to score at Wembley. A fine tactician like Pep would have seen that eventuality coming a mile off. And yet City were powerless to stop it happening. They got played like a fiddle.
That loss, just the latest blow in a long list of disappointments, initiated the next phase of soul-searching. No doubt City are entering a new chapter, one without talismanic De Bruyne and captain Walker, and possibly aging Ilkay Gundogan, too.
The recruitment team are looking to younger blood. That was certainly the tone of their £180m winter splurge, which brought, among others, the arrival of Omar Marmoush, who will help shape attacking patterns alongside Haaland. That relationship has already bore riper fruit.
Erling Haaland has already built an impressive relationship with new recruit Omar Marmoush
But problems run deeper. What remains of Jack Grealish, of Bernardo Silva, even of young Rico Lewis and James McAtee? All have been exposed during this confusing mix of a season, which actually, bizarrely, started with five emphatic wins if you include the Community Shield triumph over Manchester United in August.
It is easy to forget Man City did not lose a league game until November – when the wheels really fell off in the absence of the stricken Rodri. The implosion that followed took the world of football by complete surprise. As if the City hard drive were somehow hacked, unmasking its treasure trove of tactical secrets.
Evidently, Rodri really is that important.
City failed to score in six different Premier League games this term, as many as they had in the last two campaigns combined. Goalscoring totals were down too, managing 96 on the way to last year’s title and only 72 this time around.
Pep made the third-most changes (112) to his starting XI of any side, slightly behind Man Utd (114) and Tottenham (121), who finished 15th and 17th respectively. The 30 players used held a combined average age of 27y 81d, up from 26 last year, which brought problems of its own.
City end this season with their lowest possessional average since the Manuel Pellegrini era. Slick pass and move became glacial. Habits broken. “We cannot do it,” a puzzled Pep would repeat in press conferences. Such levels of adversity are alien to a manager so revered.
Perhaps, then, a campaign of comparative misery has equal healing potential. A catharsis of sorts, with the power to revitalise. The reshuffle of Pep’s coaching staff – with three long-standing assistants departing the club – proves he is the only one immune from the aftereffects of underachievement. Fresh ideas needed.
So, what of his squad is worth saving?
The domino effect of Rodri’s fall not only revealed gaping holes in midfield, but uncovered a fundamental flaw in City’s recent process.
The lack of midfield options able or intelligent enough to play Pep’s style has surely been the club’s biggest recruitment failure of recent years – none of Kalvin Phillips (remember him?), Matheus Nunes, Mateo Kovacic or the returning Gundogan, at 34, fit the brief.
“I think he’s not a player to play in midfield because he’s not clever enough,” the City boss said of Nunes after April’s lifeless Manchester derby.
The pursuit of Nico Gonzalez, however – signed from Porto for £50m in January – indicates Guardiola’s love for a dynamic ball-orientated central midfielder has not eroded entirely. The 23-year-old, a La Masia graduate, might be a bit rough around the edges but has already shown he can play instead, or even alongside, Rodri.
Rumours of a move for AC Milan’s Tijjani Reijnders, of similar ilk, further enhances that same school of thought and would suggest a phasing out of Bernardo and Gundogan. The pursuit of Wolves’ Rayan Ait-Nouri surely spells the end of the Nunes at right-back experiment too.
Without De Bruyne, City also need a new creator in chief. Guardiola has been forced to trial different options given the succession plan, which once led directly to Foden, is now far less certain.
The emergence of Nico O’Reilly and continual brilliance of Josko Gvardiol has reimagined how City create and sustain threat from wide, but that cannot be the only way. Jeremy Doku and Savinho are both moments players, their talents only ever on show fleetingly. Guardiola might claim to “love wingers” but this game of tactical Tetris feels more convoluted than ever.
Grealish is another problem. Opponents against whom Grealish completed 90 minutes in 2025 include Salford, Leyton Orient, Plymouth and Leicester. He managed 715 minutes of league football in total, amassing more yellow cards (3) than goal contributions (2). This month’s FA Cup final loss was particularly revealing as 19-year-old debutant Claudio Echeverri was called for from the bench, leaving Grealish in the wings.
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Pep Guardiola gave an explosive rant when asked about dropping Jack Grealish and his future at Man City
His days are surely numbered. And yet the irony is, the Grealish of old, the vintage Aston Villa brand of uninhibited Grealish, has the exact blend of intelligence and disruptive creativity that City have so badly missed.
Ultimately, few have been protected from the crossfire of this shambolic season, City’s first without a major trophy for eight years, except Pep himself of course. Rather than poor performance undermining his position, it strengthened it, signing a new deal amid the whirlwind of November’s collapse. City did not win a single game that month.
Grealish only managed seven Premier League starts this season
Guardiola has committed to the rebuild. Can he come up with another big idea, one final series of game-shifting solutions? “New faces will come, especially in positions that are a little weaker, but I don’t think much, I don’t think a lot,” he reiterated on the final day at Fulham, doubling down on his revelation he would rather quit than leave players “in the freezer”.
“We have a good squad, they have contracts, they will stay here, and I don’t want to have many players,” he added.
While this has not been a normal year for Guardiola, or the modern-day Manchester City machine, it has been fascinating. The next instalment of the saga will be more intriguing still.
Will Pep get his wish? Or are we about to see a truly transformative summer in pursuit of remedial glory…
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