Why has it all gone so wrong for Manchester City - and how can Pep Guardiola and his players turn things around? Our expert panel investigates.
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00:00Hello, I'm Matthew Gregory, and welcome to the Premier League panel. This week, we're
00:08going to try and figure out why it's all going wrong for Manchester City, as we look at the
00:12sudden decline and potential fall of Pep Guardiola's empire. To help me work out why things have
00:17gone south for the champions, I'm joined, as always, by an expert panel. Manchester
00:22Wells, Manchester City correspondent Michael Plant is here, as is freelance football reporter
00:27Mark Carruthers. Michael, I'll come to you first. The 2-0 defeat to Liverpool at the
00:31weekend wasn't just a pretty crushing blow for City's chances of getting back in the
00:35title race, but also just about as badly as I can remember them playing in such a big
00:40game. Why were they so far off the pace that Liverpool set this time out?
00:44Oh, I mean, I think you could probably write a book on it, the reasons that we've got here.
00:51I mean, obviously, I think the biggest factor is Rodri and injuries in general. I think
00:56that Rodri, in particular, was such an important player. He carried out four or five roles
01:01in the team and trying to find an exact replacement for him has proved impossible. And that's
01:05not even a problem, really. This season, I mean, City have been over-reliant on him for
01:09a couple of years now. Calvin Phillips was supposed to be the backup. That didn't work.
01:12And, you know, when he dropped out of the team last season, obviously, they lost so
01:16many games. Injuries have taken their toll elsewhere. I think confidence has obviously
01:20taken a knock. I think there's a feeling that perhaps maybe they've played so many games
01:25over the last couple of years. Fatigue has caught up with them as well. Confidence, I
01:30say, has dropped. Tactically, I maybe think that there's a few things that Guardiola could
01:34rejig. We've just got all these reasons that have come together at the one point of time.
01:41They made Fidelizoff. They were too reliant on Erling Haaland for goals and making too
01:44many defensive errors. But suddenly, we're looking at a Man City team who, a couple of
01:49weeks ago, you would have said, never, ever lose. And now they can't buy a win at the
01:54moment. So it's been an incredible downturn for them over just a couple of weeks, really,
01:58and a remarkable change that I didn't foresee, and I don't think many people did.
02:02I mean, where do you look at this, Bob? When you're looking at the root causes, I mean,
02:07as Michael says, there's quite a few you can point at. What are the first things that come
02:11to mind? What are the big issues for you? The core reasons why it's all gone so far
02:15south?
02:16I think it's just something of an imperfect storm, isn't it? It's not necessarily... You
02:21could point to stuff, as Michael said, like Rodri being missing. I also think there's
02:25just a number of players maybe coming towards that natural end of their time at Manchester
02:30City. There's some players that have been there for a long time now, and maybe they
02:33need new challenges. Every great side that we've seen in the Premier League, Michael
02:38will know more than anyone. At Manchester United, the Ferguson side, it was regenerated
02:42every few years, where I feel as if the City side have been, yes, players have come in,
02:47the Docos and Haalands in previous seasons. But I just think maybe this is a time when
02:53there's a bit of a bigger refresh needed. We saw Edison dropped out the side on Sunday.
02:59Is it time to move him on and look for a new goalkeeper? I just wonder if it is time for
03:03Guardiola really to try and refresh this squad.