Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola says teams are prepared to endure in a way they have not previously, which will cost City a Champions League place if they cannot find a solution.
Guardiola did not say that City, who faced Chelsea at home on Saturday, had completely lost their ‘fear factor’.
However, when he evaluated a torrid season, he focused on a change in approach that indicates that opponents are not intimidated as before, with teams putting more pressure on their team.
“They all came to the Etihad and stayed back,” he said. “The first team I saw man mark was Neil Warnock in Cardiff. Now everyone does it. Everyone comes here, it doesn’t matter, man for man.
“They just jump to Ederson or Stefan [Ortega]. You have to adapt, do better with the ball, otherwise you are not qualifying for the Champions League.”
City are currently fifth in the Premier League, 12 points behind leaders Liverpool. Towards the end of 2024 they won just one game in 13 and now find themselves having to beat Club Brugge on Wednesday just to claim a Champions League play-off place after this week’s defeat by Paris St-Germain.
Although City have £123m of new talent available for their Premier League clash with Chelsea, Guardiola does not believe it will alone solve their problems.
He dismissed those who focused on running statistics as evidence of whether a team is performing at its best or not, instead pointing out that their team hasn’t used the ball well enough.
“Speed is important, but against PSG we ran more than them,” he said. “Our problem is with the ball. This season is what we have missed.
“If you have the ball and you don’t pass correctly to your partner, everything is very difficult.”
When City won 2-0 at Stamford Bridge on the opening weekend of the season, few would have predicted come the return meeting that Chelsea would be higher on the table and Guardiola’s side would be just one point ahead of Bournemouth.
Guardiola believes qualifying for next season’s Champions League would be like winning a trophy, given the injuries that cost him the services of Ballon d’Or winner Rodri and leaving him with one fit central defender this weekend, excluding new additions to Vitor Reis and Abdukodir Khusanov.
He also said there was merit to Jose Mourinho’s famous claim that finishing second behind City with Manchester United in 2017-18 was one of the greatest achievements of his career.
“There are seasons in which there are many difficulties,” Guardiola said. “How do you stand up? How do you stay there?”
“I remember José. I don’t know the reality of United, but he said that many times finishing second in that season was his greatest success. I completely understand.”
