City slump highlights task at hand for Guardiola

IF Manchester City’s players aren’t careful Pep Guardiola won’t be in the Champions League next season. There was always a danger that City’s season would go off the rails once they announced Guardiola’s arrival for the start of next season.

If you give players an inch, they will take a mile and I know from experience that when a manager’s days are numbered, there is more disharmony behind the scenes.

Players who the manager doesn’t fancy are more vocal because they know he is leaving, and become disruptive in the dressing room and on the training ground.

It was inevitable the players would slacken off and not fully be in games mentally. The proof is in City’s results.

They have won two games since the announcement, not including the League Cup Final against Liverpool, which was a draw.

And, yes, they may have won the cup on penalties, but they don’t look capable of winning the Champions League, Pellegrini gave up on the FA Cup, don’t look like winning the Premier League and are in danger of missing out on fourth place.

Looking through the squad, I can only see six players the new City boss will be looking to keep — Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany (if fit), Pablo Zabaleta, David Silva, Sergio Aguero, Raheem Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne. Fernandinho is a possibility.

I don’t think he will be having Yaya Toure — who he sold at Barcelona — while Nicolas Otamendi, Eliaquim Mangula, Samir Nasri, Aleksandar Kolarov, Bacary Sagna, Gael Clichy, Jesus Navas, Fernando and Fabien Delph don’t strike me as his type of player, while he certainly won’t be having Wilfried Bony.

That means the squad needs a massive overhaul and Guardiola will be facing his biggest managerial test.

And it will be even tougher if City don’t make top four.

Manchester United can still reach fourth. If they do it will show, despite Leicester and Spurs, that this is a poor season.

But Louis van Gaal could do it and a victory over City today would help erase the memory of the pain of going out of Europe to Liverpool.

Defeat today and he can kiss goodbye to the Champions League for next season, and probably his job with that.

And I don’t think there will be too many tears shed among the United faithful.