City's 2024/25 Struggles Are Not Over With Two Tough Games To Play

There is no denying it, the 2024/25 domestic Premier League campaign and our European adventure this season have been a hugely disappointing, and frustrating one, for Manchester City fans up and down the country and manager Pep Guardiola has not really hidden it either.

Individual fans will have their own preferred reasons for our struggles this year and some would point to the early season injury crisis we had, others will wonder whether the ongoing and seemingly endless Financial Fair Play investigation by the Premier League has been too much of a distraction for the players, and others would undoubtedly also look at the gaffer and his strict belief in how we should play. Particularly his reluctance to approach matches in any other way and whether or not we have now simply been found out, or whether complacency has caught up with the current crop of players.

Whatever the truth may be, odds chosen by Betway with two games remaining in the top flight campaign are unlucky to be too generous to us. For our final game of the season against Fulham, the bookies have us winning at 8/13, and drawing the game at 16/5.
We are yet to secure Champions League football for next season and currently occupy sixth place in the table - but we do have a game in hand on those sides above us with us still to face both Bournemouth and Fulham. The problem there is that although we should be looking at all six points, we know exactly how both sides will set up and play and there will certainly be those fans out there who feel that we could be looking at another repeat of the FA Cup Final against Crystal Palace.

We had 79% of the possession against Oliver Glasner's side, and with 23 shots in total compared to their seven, we were in total control yet Eberechi Eze scored the all important sucker punch in the 16th minute and despite our dominance we just ultimately had no answer. It is a situation that we have found ourselves in too many times in the 2024/25 campaign with our eight draws and nine league defeats so far and there is no solution to be found if Guardiola looks at woeful referee decisions, or players like Ruben Dias focus in on opposition teams playing to their own strengths and sitting back.

It is what the vast majority of sides do when they face us and this season we have lost the ability to deal with it, and have arguably blunted our own strengths at points by beginning to play too safely in attacking positions just to maintain possession of the ball, and we have stopped taking some risks that may well have led to good chances being created had we been a little bolder.

There is clearly not a quick solve to this, and that unfortunately means that our weakness is likely to be back on full show in the two matches to come and it could well lead to even greater frustration for the fans. Pep is unlikely to try something new, but we need to move away from the predictable way of playing - even if that move means extra minutes for someone like a Jack Grealish as we know how he can open games up when granted a little bit of extra freedom.

Over to Pep, but it is going to be an interesting summer when the distraction of the Club World Cup is out of the way.