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This time the problem with Ilkay Gundogan was not when he was on the pitch but when he was off it. The treble-winning captain’s performance against Tottenham had felt a symbolically sad occasion, a match when the only thing he did quickly was decline. Three days later, Gundogan was exuding authority again, smoothly stylish when scoring one goal and helping set up another.
He was taken off, Pep Guardiola looking ahead to Sunday’s trip to Anfield, rationalising: “Ilkay is the only fit holding midfielder we have”. There were two flaws in his thinking. Firstly that Manchester City, 3-0 up against Feyenoord, contrived to draw 3-3 without the authority of a senior figure. The second is that Gundogan isn’t really a holding midfielder at all: a distributor can be a regista but he is more a constructive than a destructive presence. In his prime, he was a catalyst for City in the final third, not the middle third.
Because City don’t have a fit holding midfielder. And not because Mateo Kovacic is injured, either. They started conceding and being caught on the counter-attack when the Croatian was installed as the first replacement for the injured Rodri. Kovacic can knit a game together but not stop an attack. The statistics showing City are conceding more big chances and more vulnerable to fast breaks reflect as much.
Feyenoord’s comeback, their burst of three goals in 15 minutes, was not the fault of Kovacic or Gundogan. It came without anyone really equipped to patrol the area in front of a defence that now included Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, an 18-year-old veteran of two starts. City have gone from boasting the best defensive midfielder in the world to none whatsoever, from having a defence formed of expensive centre-backs to one with a teenage rookie.
They have also gone from a winning machine to a team with five losses, and a draw that Nathan Ake said felt like a defeat, in six games. Josko Gvardiol’s mistakes on the pitch have cost them, but, more than that, City’s errors in recruitment have caught up with them. Which isn’t to say Gvardiol is one of them. Even as Guardiola took loyalty to bizarre extremes by calling the Croatian “the best player on the pitch” against Feyenoord, Gvardiol is instead a £77m enigma; signed as the outstanding centre-back in a World Cup, he has become a buccaneering attacking left-back who can be flawed defensively.
But while director of football Txiki Begiristain will leave next summer with many a tribute, most of them deserved, as the architect of an era of extraordinary success, City have felt negligent in the last two summer transfer windows. It didn’t appear to matter; until, suddenly, it has.
Consider the business done since they won the Champions League in 2023, but also the deals that weren’t done. There are six major signings in the squad; in the case of Gundogan, a re-signing. City were reluctant to give him a long contract in 2023, and brought him back from Barcelona in 2024, perhaps missing out on the last season of his prime. The eventual verdict – taken from Tottenham and Newcastle and Brighton and Sporting – may be that his comeback was a mistake. He and Kovacic are technicians, Guardiola-style midfielders, but each was also a short-term signing.
And in bringing in both and Matheus Nunes, they only exacerbated the reliance on Rodri. Then there is Nunes: he had a fine month in October, but he is a £50m presence who prefers to play in positions where City are already overstocked. He played well against Feyenoord but often seems superfluous, an afterthought.
And if City needed an attacking central midfielder, it is the one they sold: Cole Palmer could have been the long-term replacement for Kevin de Bruyne. Letting him leave may be, as Chelsea’s decision to sell De Bruyne was, a mistake that haunts them for a decade. At a time when too few others can ease the burden on Erling Haaland, Palmer has more top-flight goals than every City midfielder and winger put together.
The two wingers City have signed in successive summers, Jeremy Doku and Savinho, have tricks and entertainment value; but not goals. Savinho has taken the No 26 shirt that used to belong to Riyad Mahrez and offers echoes of the Algerian in some respects. But Mahrez delivered 39 goals in his last two seasons in Manchester. Savinho is yet to get off the mark.
There are other reasons to find fault with City’s recruitment. Haaland is the only striker; it increases the risk that, like Rodri, he will be overworked and more prone to injury. Other clubs have a policy of looking for two players in every position. City have too many in some, too few in others.
It is not the only way they have left themselves short-staffed. Guardiola prefers to operate with a small squad; he is the antidote to the managers who forever ask for more players. City used to boast a formidable fitness record. But now an ageing squad are more injury prone and more stretched; players such as De Bruyne, John Stones, Jack Grealish, Kovacic and Ake are likely to have spells of every season on the sidelines, even before Rodri lost his indestructability.
And Kyle Walker may have lost his place. The three-year deal City gave him in 2023 looks another questionable choice. Perhaps Guardiola simply took his captain out of the firing line against Feyenoord. Perhaps, however, his troubled outing against Tottenham signified the end of his days as a first choice. But if right-back is becoming a problem position and left-back another, holding midfield has been one since Rodri was injured.
It is only 18 months since Gundogan lifted the three trophies of their treble. It was a triumph of Guardiola’s coaching and, if facilitated by their funding, was a triumph of planning.
Yet when City find themselves with five losses and the most dispiriting of draws in six matches now, 15th in the Champions League, potentially soon out of the Premier League title race, it shows a failure of decision-making since then. Because some of City’s choices threatened to backfire long before Guardiola decided to substitute Gundogan.
