Breaking news: The City all-stars can defend too!
It WAS the same room, same chair, in which the same Pep Guardiola had sat down to tell us, less than a year earlier, that he was ‘not a coach for the tackles. I don’t train the tackles. What’s tackles?’
As someone memorably put it at the time, Guardiola arrived in Leicester that December day looking like ‘ that guy who thinks he can climb Everest in a t-shirt’ and his response, after a 4-2 defeat, suggested that this was one football summit he would not be scaling any time soon.
the bad news for the sides trailing City is that their return to the scene of that defeat provided evidence that they can defend, too.
Having denied Leicester City a single shot on target, it seemed necessary to ask Guardiola whether he still did not believe in tackles. He was implacable.
‘It is important,’ he replied. ‘But I don’t train tackles. I train to keep the ball and defend well.’
the reasons why so much has changed is a process of cause and effect. It is what happens ahead of the defence that has altered. there’s less complexity, simpler passing, less concession of the ball.
there is also a goalkeeper — Ederson — with immeasurably better skills than Claudio Bravo. And John Stones now has out-ball options when he looks up from central defence. there were none when he made a kamikaze backpass on this turf last winter.
‘You concede counter-attack when you lose easy passes, simple passes, when the players want to do more creative things that are not necessary, and you are not organised,’ Guardiola said, when asked why we had not seen last season’s vulnerability this time.
‘We have been playing more simple. Our game is quicker because we play simple. We play one or two touches, no more than that. We are organised through the ball.’
You only had to examine the architecture of Gabriel Jesus’s 45th- minute opening goal to understand what he was talking about. It required 10 touches to navigate the ball through Leicester’s midfield. No player applied more than two. No player delivered it more than five yards. there was security among the splendour.
In some ways, this harks back to the dominant English sides of old. Alan Hansen once said of his central defensive partnership with Phil thompson: ‘Phil and I were as weak as water. We must be the only team in the world with a pair of centre halves who can’t tackle.’
If there is a vulnerability in City, then it’s a shallowness of defensive resource. they are without Stones for up to six weeks, with the left hamstring pull he sustained here. Vincent Kompany is physically fragile. Eliaquim Mangala is a last resort. Guardiola said he may reinforce in January.
Jose Mourinho and Mauricio Pochettino both have a chance to test this problem next month. Leicester felt Kompany should have been dismissed in the third minute for a challenge on Jamie Vardy, as he raced towards goal.
Leicester were organised and displayed flair. Riyadh Mahrez was dangerous, bringing an outstanding performance from Fabian Delph, who is flourishing as Benjamin Mendy’s stand-in. But Kevin De Bruyne’s left-foot strike finished things off.
‘When you think you’ve cornered them, they come out the other side and you end up oneonone with their full back,’ said Marc Albrighton. ‘It’s difficult to play against. If there’s a team out there who beat them to the title I’ll be shocked.’