There was something almost refreshing about Manchester City’s performance in beating Manchester United in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday. Here was a Pep Guardiola side back to its best, passing and moving, a blur of a thousand midfielders confounding duller-witted opponents. Gone was the fragility to the counter that had enabled Marcus Rashford to eviscerate them in the Premier League at the beginning of December, and diminished with it was the thought that this might be a side in terminal decline.
When great teams go, they can collapse suddenly. As City struggled against United, Wolves (again) and Newcastle, it was possible to envisage this as a team reaching the end of its lifespan. Béla Guttmann’s Three-Year Rule – the great Hungarian coach said that if a manager stays at a club more than that period, players tend to become bored and/or complacent and opponents start to work out counter-strategies – began to be invoked.
Written by Jonathan Wilson
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2020/jan/11/manchester-city-singular-brilliance-pep-guardiola-jonathan-wilson under the title “Manchester City’s flaws have been exposed but singular brilliance remains | Jonathan Wilson”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
