Pep Guardiola and Manchester City’s ‘crisis’ much exaggerated (but isn’t that the Premier League way?)

THE EARLY TACKLE: Pep Guardiola’s halo has slipped a little in recent weeks. But suggestions he has lost his way may be wishful thinking on the part of his rivals.

Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City project has arrived at its first major test.

IN THE unforgiving spotlight of the Premier League there is little room for shades of grey. A binary assessment is applied to all those who seek to work at its top end; one is a genius or a halfwit, a guru or a buffoon.

It is a lesson, if it needed learning, that Pep Guardiola is currently getting his first practical tutorial in.

After winning his first 11 games as manager of Manchester City, the Catalan was being handed the title from some quarters. Four matches without a win later and it is the voice of smug hecklers who are being heard.

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The man who arrived in England hailed as the finest coach of his generation had not, in fact, turned City in to an Anglicised version of Barcelona or Bayern in a matter of weeks. He’s been found out. A false idol. Even Manuel Pellegrini wouldn’t have had his pants pulled down by Lionel Messi quite like that …

The truth, as ever, falls somewhere between these two polarised assessments. City remain top of the Premier League and, regardless of the effervescence of Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, Tottenham’s robust effectiveness and — whisper it quietly — an Arsenal side showing uncommon signs of depth, balance and resilience, when they’ve been on song City have played the best football the division has had to offer by some distance.

Manchester City's manager Pep Guardiola stands next to the bench during a Champions League, Group C soccer match between Barcelona and Manchester City, at Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

“We are a new club, getting to know each other in a process,” Guardiola said after that chastening 4-0 defeat against his former club Barcelona in the Champions League this week.

“My perception is that we did well, knowing where we’ve come from and who we are. We’ve been brave. When Messi, Neymar and Suárez attack you, it’s very complicated. They punish you.”

The idea of City as an underdog club still striving to find its identity is disingenuous. Guardiola has not taken over at Newcastle. The team he now presides over were Champions League semi-finalists last season, and have added quality since. He was drafted in to finesse a domestic and European power, not build from scratch.

Yet there was validity to defending what looked, on first view, a calamitous defeat. A meeting with Barcelona is instructive as a measure of City’s progress under Guardiola. That type of fixture is the yardstick by which he must be judged. The test came early in his tenure, and it brought a failure; but perhaps not one as emphatic as the scoreboard suggests.

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City’s ploy of hustling and harrying Barcelona high up the pitch, with a midfield bolstered at the expense of Sergio Aguero’s participation from the start, to starve the hosts’ peerless front three of service was in large part working until Claudio Bravo had a brain freeze and picked up a red card for comically handling outside the box.

Critics of Guardiola rightly point to the irony of Bravo having been drafted in, at the expense of Joe Hart, to better employ the coach’s wish for his goalkeeper to act as an effective sweeper. It is not the first occasion on which he has erred with the ball at his feet. And in this instance it changed the game. His error can, on one level, be reasonably read as Guardiola’s own.

Once Barcelona had a man advantage City’s plan to press relentlessly was undermined. Lionel Messi’s class told, with the help of a number of individual errors from the visitors. Work still needs doing but it would have been interesting to see how the match would have played out if the full compliment of players had stayed on the field.

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 02: The Tottenham Hotspur players celebrate their sides first goal after Aleksander Kolorov of Manchester City scores a own goal during the Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City at White Hart Lane on October 2, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

City’s first failure to win this season came at Celtic, where Brendan Rogers’ side decided to fight fire with fire and counter press their perceived English superiors. Three times Celtic led and even as the game drew to a close were pushing for a winner rather than accepting an impressive point.

A week earlier Swansea had tried something similar and, though they came up short, gave City enough problems to suggests vulnerabilities existed.

Tottenham did not have to change their tactics when going toe-to-toe with City, Mauricio Pochettino’s hard running, super-fit outfit — spearheaded by the tireless Son Heung-min — had the legs, the confidence and, with due respect to Celtic and Swansea, the collective quality to turn the advantage of urgency in to a decisive one.

Few sides have the same kind of playing resources as Barca, or even Spurs, but a blue print has nonetheless been set on how to meet the challenge of Guardiola’s City. And it is a boon for the neutral.

Building a wall will only postpone the inevitable. Taking the game to them may carry risk, but also potential reward. City’s matches will be box office for the foreseeable future if opponents take lessons from their recent troubles.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 15: Maarten Stekelenburg of Everton saves Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City penalty during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Everton at Etihad Stadium on October 15, 2016 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

That is not to say they have been entirely undone. Far from it. Knowing that City have a weakness and actually exploiting it are two very different things. They have such an embarrassment of individual quality that even on off days they have multiple routes to victory.

And those revelling in the recent ‘slump’ in form also might do well to re-watch their most recent Premier League match. Everton, no mugs, were overrun and outclassed for much of their visit to Manchester. A few slices of luck and an exceptional goalkeeping display from Maarten Stekelenburg — whose two penalty saves only scrapped in to his top five of the afternoon — allowed them to steal a point.

What is evident, and for neutrals welcome, is that City will be forced to earn their title rather than simply accept a coronation. However, the rumours of Guardiola’s fading powers are, if not ridiculous, then at least much exaggerated.