By Samuel A. April 1, 2023
Manchester City have been the most successful team in the premier league since the appointment of Spanish veteran, Pep Guardiola. They have won four Premier League titles, four League cup titles, two community shield titles and one FA Cup title over the past six years. Asides from that, they’ve also implemented a very exciting playing style, playing tiki taka at its very best and scoring a lot of goals. However, the team has lacked that cutting edge in the UEFA Champions League. They’ve been eliminated from the quarterfinals several times, with their closest to the trophy a final match loss to Chelsea in 2021.
There has always been one problem or the other over the past few years, with the team lacking either a striker, a defensive midfielder or a defender in all their eliminations. Some of these eliminations were also due to the manager, Pep Guardiola ‘overthinking’ in some situations, like deploying a rare three defender formation against Lyon, as well as playing the Champions League final without a defensive midfielder. The striker problems were solved last summer, after the signature of Erling Haaland and Julian Alvarez for £68m only. The signings have been exceptional for the team so far, with the duo having a joint 55 goals and 11 assists in all competitions. However, if they fail to win a trophy this season, they would be considered a failure.
Guardiola, when asked a personal question at a press conference earlier last year said “If I retire now, or in five or ten years, what happened in my career, it was completely unexpected when I started. I’m most grateful to the clubs, for the players I’ve had, the way we played and the way we’ve done it. These are words and theories that make me so grateful and happy but this is a business. And the business is to win. If we don’t win, I’ll be a failure. And if we win, it’ll be ‘How good is Pep?”. He further said about the Champions League that what this team has done, these players, in the last five, six years has been exceptional. Further explaining that the team has always been there. In the big competitions, arriving, getting the job done. He insisted that he wouldn’t have achieved this success without my players, especially the ones that have been there right from the start, Kevin, Kyle, Ilkay and the others. He concluded, saying “If we do not win the Champions League, I wouldn’t consider the team a failure”. Manchester City face Bayern Munich on the 11th of April for the first leg of the quarterfinals.
