CAN PEP REALLY TURN BACK THE CLOCK?
City used to turn up at West Ham and say: ’How many shall we score today?’ Now Guardiola faces his biggest test since 2016 as his disjointed team look a pale shadow of themselves
DARREN LEWIS
HE sidestepped the question but Pep Guardiola is facing his biggest test since arriving at Manchester City in 2016. Eight points so far is the club’s lowest return in the Premier League at this stage for five years. This tit title race really is wide open. For the t last four seasons under Guardi Guardiola, City have come to the capital capital, kicked sand in West Ham’s face faces and swaggered out of Lo London with the points, with l league wins of 4-0, 4-1, 4-0 and 5-0, taking 12 points f from a possible 12. Not this tim time.
Ser Sergio Aguero ( left) lasted just 45 minutes m with Guardiola confir confirming he is back out with a suspec suspected hamstring injury. Kevin De Bru Bruyne could only make it on for the last 22 minutes.
Gab Gabriel Jesus is still on the s idel ines along with
Fernandinho, Benjamin Mendy, Nathan Ake and Aymeric Laporte.
And injuries have taken such a toll that Guardiola named an unchanged starting line-up here for the first time in three years – since October 2017, some 172 games ago.
He’ll get no sympathy from outside the Etihad, of course, with a squad probably costing four or five times that of David Moyes’ Hemmers. It’s not Guardiola’s fault, though , th a t everything that can go wrong for him is going wrong.
City – brilliant though they may be
– could end up leaving themselves with too much to do.
Fair play to Guardiola for at least trying to put a positive spin on it.
“Every season is a challenge,” he said. “This is different but the world is different. We played an incredibly tough game against
Porto last week and we came back here and competed.
“We struggled in the good moments and showed a desire to score. Now we recover the people for Tuesday.” Marseille will be licking their lips as they prepare to host them in the Champions League tomorrow night.
This City is light years away from the rampant, free-scoring outfit that banged in four goals or more on 11 occasions in the Premier League last season. Michail Antonio’s 18th- minute opener, a magnificent overhead volley, was worthy of winning any game. But Phil Foden came off the bench to snatch the point early in the second half. City were then handed a huge slice of luck as Antonio, who had tormented them throughout, limped off injured midway through the first half. His replacement, Andriy Yarmolenko, was so bad Moyes’ side looked to be playing with h 10 men. Raheem Sterling and Riyad yad Mahrez ( left, top) could have ave snatched it late on but were ere denied by Hammers’ keeper per Lukasz Fabianski to the frustration trawe of Rodri ( left, bottom).
“We created chances but we had two strikers injured and d Raheem is fighting,” Guardiola a continued. “He’s doing it every y game in a position that is not t his. We are trying to adapt to what we have. We’ve had a lack of preparation.
“Sometimes the players are re tired. We have to keep going, be patient and we will get back k to our best.”
Guardiola’s men echoed his sentiments. Defender Eric ic Garcia, unusually keeping his s place despite declining to sign a new deal with less than a year left, clearly received the memo.
“It will come,” he said. “We didn’t have a pre-season, we went straight into the first game. We’ve had injuries and lost players to the virus, but once we get everyone back k I think we’ll have a better tempo.” po.”
HIGH AND FLIGHTY