Manchester City: Have Faith – Pep Will Sort It

Defensive Problems

It is not tricky to find a series of articles analysing the recent performances of the Manchester City defence. Much of this was set in the immediate aftermath of the defeat to Norwich and was initially led to “red tinged” pundits such as Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher.

A lot of this analysis has dwelt upon individual mistakes and extrapolated from those. Suddenly the narrative has switched and the pundits and media would have you believe we have an appalling defensive record.

This is of course not true. Last season in all competitions we actually lost less games than Liverpool. In the Premier League we only conceded one more goal than they did and yet somehow the pundits would have you believe they are the best defensive unit in the world.

This year we have suffered two issues in defence, which are both linked. We lost Vincent Kompany in the Summer and decided not to bring in a replacement. The media will say this “mistake” cost us games. Of course we all loved Vinnie but the truth is last season’s title run of games was probably his most consistent run of games in 5 years. It was unlikely to be repeated even if he had remained – the chances are he would be unavailable if we needed him.

Secondly, we lost our best defender to a serious knee injury. Laporte linked our play so much, it was not a surprise no one could step uop and replicate the job he performs for us. Adding the fact Stones too picked up an injury and suddenly City have been forced into a makeshift central defence.

Unfortunately this has combined with a couple of issues – ongoing problems at left back and a change in the most complex positional role in our Guardiola team – at centre defensive midfield. These changes have resulted in our makeshift defence being under more pressure than we would have liked.

For all the focus upon Otamendi in the Wolves defeat, it was the midfield which probably cost us the result.

So to proclaim our defence as woeful misses the point and is just a ploy to undermine player confidence. The reality is we need to solidify in front of the defence to afford them more protection and so the results will come. To do this I would rather play Eric Garcia in defence and move Fernandinho alongside Rodri in midfield.

Guardiola, on holiday in the Maldives, is no doubt right now deciding upon the tweaks to the defence for the next few games and we just to need to relax, because he will sort it.