Pep Guardiola’s terrible new strategy at Manchester City: avoid making substitutions – The Warm-Up
:focal(136x152:138x150)/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2015/11/13/1731704-36632322-310-310.png)
Updated 16/12/2020 at 08:58 GMT
Pep Guardiola forgets how to make substitutions, Jose Mourinho adds extra spice to Liverpool v Tottenham and Jack Grealish provides a textbook example of how to lose your driver’s licence. Plus: a beautiful infringement from N’Golo Kante and a tribute to an AC Milan great on the club’s 121st birthday.
Pep Guardiola the head coach / manager of Manchester City reacts during the Premier League match between Manchester City and West Bromwich Albion at Etihad Stadium
Image credit: Getty Images
WEDNESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Time for a substitute, Pep?
It must be so strange graduating at Manchester City. You spend your adolescent life learning how to evade defenders, read interceptions, track your man, thrive in end-to-end matches. Eventually, you earn your promotion into the first team… then bam. Week one, 11 opponents behind the ball. Week two, 11 opponents behind the ball. Week three, 11 opponents behind the ball. And so it goes on.
These aren’t football matches, more incentivised training sessions. Your rivals scuttle across the pitch, closing down all possible avenues while displaying complete apathy towards the ball at your feet. Even when they concede, it’s a simple reset and repeat. If they force a set-piece, great. If not, no bother. Just keep that goal difference healthy and move on.
Domestically, it hasn’t really fazed City. 100 points. 98 points. A bucket of cups. They always seem to find a way through because their attack is unavoidably potent. Until suddenly, it’s not.
Gabriel Jesus doesn’t score. Sergio Aguero lives in rehab. Raheem Sterling has lost his zip. Phil Foden isn't the new David Silva. And while Kevin De Bruyne has a delicious delivery, if no one converts then he’s as redundant as the rest.
Worst of all, Pep Guardiola appears to have stumbled on a terrible new strategy: avoid making substitutions. He made none in the tough 2-0 win over Fulham, a solitary change in the dreadful Manchester derby draw, and two with just 15 minutes to play as they searched for a winner against lowly West Brom.
If Pep was guilty of over-experimenting in previous seasons (see every Champions League defeat since 2012), then he now looks afraid to do anything. Against West Brom. At home. With Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez and Ferran Torres raring to go on the bench. Even the Warm-Up is backing ourselves to take maximum points in that scenario.
Perhaps the most damning indictment of how far City have slumped is that Slaven Bilic is now supposedly fighting for his job – just hours after guiding the Baggies to a 1-1 draw at the Etihad.
Mourinho goes fishing
Alisson is not injured. Alexander-Arnold is not injured. Matip, I believe that he's going to play. Fabinho is not injured. Robertson is not injured. Henderson is not injured. Wijnaldum is not injured. Salah is not injured, Firmino is not injured, Mane is not injured. Van Dijk is injured and Van Dijk is a very good player of course. But give me Liverpool's list of injuries and compare that list with what is the best Liverpool team… I can give you a list of 10 injuries at Tottenham. We have two kids in the Under-16s with injuries, we have two others in the Under-21s and three in the Under-23s. We have Lamela and Tanganga. And here you have a list of 10 players.
Before we congratulate Jose Mourinho on some outstanding fishing, a quick maths lesson: 2+2+3+2 = 9. Not 10.
That aside, he’s spot on. We’ve heard so much about Liverpool’s injury crisis that we forgot to check if it ever actually was one. We’ve watched as Jurgen Klopp read Virgil van Dijk’s last rites and fumed at his fellow managers for rejecting the five subs proposal (something we suspect terrifies Guardiola). But aside from Van Dijk? It’s not a disaster for Liverpool. Sure, Thiago Alcantara is out, but they won the Premier League without him, while Joe Gomez and Diogo Jota are replaceable. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joel Matip are already back, while that famous front three of Salah-Firmino-Mane is unscathed.
Where have we seen this whinging before? Oh yes, Mourinho, in basically every job he's ever had. Klopp and Mourinho don't share much in the way of football philosophy, but they have one mutual skill – the ability to convince anyone who will listen that the world is against them. Just wait for the Spurs boss to pipe up when Harry Kane's ankles take their annual leave in January...
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2020/12/15/2956017-60676268-2560-1440.jpg)
'Give me a list!' – Mourinho mocks Liverpool’s injury 'problem'
How Not To Drive – by Jack Grealish
Need a last-minute gift for a petrolhead this Christmas? Consider Jack Grealish’s How Not To Drive, available in all good bookstores now. Featuring exclusive tips on how to reverse into multiple vehicles in the same car park, bully someone out of the fast lane, and pull off an abhorrent hoody-shorts combo:
Not for you? How about his best-selling sequel, How To Arrive In Court with (Almost) Nobody Seeing You:
For all the youngsters thinking about emulating Grealish, he was fined £82,000 and banned from driving for two months. It pays to be safe, kids.
IN THE CHANNELS
How Not To Football – by N’Golo Kante.
Continuing the Chelsea theme, one man who is lucky to avoid criticism in today's column is Timo Werner. Fortunately, someone on Twitter was on hand to do the job for us:
RETRO CORNER
On this very day, 121 years ago, Milan Football and Cricket Club was founded by three English expats. That team evolved to become AC Milan and, in a very tenuous link to sneak in a classic YouTube video, here is one of their greatest, Kaka, retiring the entire Manchester United defence in his pomp:
COMING UP
There is nothing better than a midweek roast dinner. And while we can’t offer you that, you can at least look forward to six scrumptious midweek Premier League games – including Liverpool v Tottenham. Live commentary of that cracker (20:00), Arsenal v Southampton (18:00) and Barcelona v Real Sociedad (20:00) in La Liga right here on eurosport.co.uk.
Two vehicles in a car park? Pffft, Andi Thomas crashed into six in one sitting earlier this year. Fortunately he’s filing tomorrow’s Warm-Up from home so the roads are safe.
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article