Man City: Guardiola makes ‘strange’ call in ‘routine’ Aston Villa win as pundits slam ‘shell of a team’

December 22, 2024
12:24 am

Manchester City have been branded “a shell of a team” after Aston Villa’s “routine” win over the champions on Saturday as Peter Crouch questioned Pep Guardiola’s “strange” call.

Guardiola’s side were completely outplayed by Villa in the 2-1 defeat, with goals from Jhon Duran and Morgan Rogers either side of the break enough to secure victory before Phil Foden scored a late consolation.

The result means City have lost nine of their last 12 games as their extraordinary slump continues and Crouch was shocked by their insipid display in Birmingham

“Their heads are down,” Crouch said on TNT Sports. “They are a shell of the team they were.

“It felt like today there was no urgency, no desperation to go and win, just that there was another loss coming.

“Kevin De Bruyne was sat on the bench. We didn’t see him today. I’m not sure what’s going on with De Bruyne, why you wouldn’t bring him on in a match where you are desperate for a goal? It felt strange.”

He added: “Villa will have a lot tougher games than what they have just had there, against far lower-calibre opposition. That felt pretty routine today.”

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Former City defender Joleon Lescott raised doubts as to whether Guardiola will be able to lift his side out of their current rut and believes their aura has gone.

“They were the team you had to be at your ultimate best against to possibly get a draw. That isn’t the case now,” he said.

“When teams have beaten City in the past, they were lucky and City were unfortunate. That isn’t the case now – teams deserve to win these games. That’s the worrying thing, teams aren’t lucky to beat City.

“It’s going to be hard for them to get out of this and the longer it goes on, the harder it becomes. If they had won today, they still wouldn’t be out of the woods.

“When teams smell blood, it gives them confidence. We’ve seen it with other great teams coming to the end of an era.

“They smell blood and all of a sudden it builds confidence, whatever it is – keeping a clean sheet, being efficient in front of goal or at set piece – whatever it may be.

“City need to find some sort of luck, not just quality. We saw it in the goal today, that’s not a prescribed City goal. Maybe they need to create from luck rather than quality.”