32% loss-rate this season 

©IMAGO

When it comes with little shock that Manchester City under Pep Guardiola capitulate and lose 3-2 to an injury-ravaged Real Madrid on their own turf, or when they ship five goals at the Emirates to an Arsenal side with their own injury issues in the forward positions, then it’s clear something isn’t quite right. For such a long time, football fans have become accustomed to Guardiola’s juggernauts churning out win after win. There’s very rarely major problems within the camp. Right now, they look in disarray. City’s defeat to Madrid leaves them with a mountain to climb at the Santiago Bernabéu next week to stay in the Champions League, whilst they are fifth in the Premier League, 15 points behind league leaders Liverpool.

After the Champions League defeat to Los Blancos, manager Guardiola said: “Sometimes it happens that a team is better and the result doesn’t work. It was 2-1 but it happened too much this season [throwing leads away]. In many games it happened, against Feyenoord, Sporting, Brentford in the Premier League Man United, many games we gave away.” All is not well in the City team right now, and it’s unusual. Conceding late goals and capitulating from commanding positions is becoming all too familiar for the Premier League champions.

The Sky Blues have been completely dominant since Guardiola arrived in 2016 – winning 15 trophies in nine seasons. But is this the worst Man City team we have seen under the Spaniard? The absence of Rodri can’t be underestimated, and has clearly had an effect, but right now their seems to be an even deeper rooted problem at the club. Remarkably, since the start of November, no team has conceded more goals across all competitions than Man City from sides in Europe’s top-five leagues (44 in 23 games). Only a chaotic Tottenham can lay claim to conceding the same amount, and even that has come in fewer games (44 in 25 games). An all-round simply baffling statistic. Let’s take a look at the numbers behind Man City’s woes to see if this is indeed the worst team we’ve ever seen under the great Guardiola’s stewardship.

The stats behind Man City’s terrible season

Supporters of other Premier League clubs have long been trying to manufacture reasons for a Man City fall off or drop in form, but any adversity Guardiola’s team face, usually gets shrugged off with little impact. When Guardiola first arrived at City, people questioned whether his ‘tiki-taka’ style of football was suited to the Premier League – Man City were soon churning out trophies on English shores. When Man City had no striker before signing Erling Haaland, people said you can’t win a league without a recognised centre-forward – Phil Foden, İlkay Gündogan and Raheem Sterling chipped in and City won the Premier League. When it was announced Kevin De Bruyne was injured and would miss around half of last season, people claimed that could be the boost for Arsenal or Liverpool to wrestle the title away from the Sky Blues – Man City made it five titles in a row. But right now, Guardiola’s team finally appear rattled. 

As illustrated in the graphic above, Man City have already lost as many games this season as they ever have in a single campaign since Guardiola joined the club back in 2016. The Sky Blues have lost 31.6% of their matches this term – numbers alien to this team under the Spaniard. Their previous highest amount of losses came in the 2019/20 campaign, when City lost out on the league title to Liverpool, and had a lost 12 matches. But that came from a total of 58 matches. Already, just 38 games into the season, Guardiola’s team have equalled that, and lost more than they did in all of his other seven seasons at the club. Still in mid February, there will be plenty more obstacles for Man City this term, and that figure could keep on rising.

As we can see above, Man City’s leaky defence has been a big part of their underwhelming form this season. They have already conceded 63 goals at a rate of 1.66 goals conceded per game. In the 2020/21 season, they conceded just 42 goals across the entire campaign. Even if we look at the previous worst defensive season under Guardiola (which was last season) they still only conceded 1.12 goals per game, which is significantly better than this campaign. Stopping conceding and giving away so many chances will surely be pivotal to any success Man City can salvage this season, but Rodri-less, they will have to start improving results quickly if they want to continue their trophy-glittered run.