0:19

Hello and welcome to

0:21

the double pivot. The

0:23

world's most agreeable soccer

0:25

athletics podcast. I am

0:27

Michael Cayley. We are

0:29

back at the Premier

0:31

League is back and

0:33

there's only one story

0:35

that anyone is talking

0:37

about. Manchester City

0:39

are in crisis. That's right.

0:42

We have a new sound effect. And

0:44

of course this is the only

0:46

topic anyone is talking about because

0:48

they really have lost five all-comps three

0:51

league matches in a row. Pepp Guardiola's

0:53

job is in danger. They are in

0:55

second place in the table. Mm. I'm

0:57

joined by Mike Goodman. Gotta talk

1:00

this through. How you doing? Let's do it.

1:02

The music you heard in the rain as

1:04

well. Please don't subscribe. Make us happy

1:06

as podcasters. Patrian.com/double pivot pivot. You can

1:09

come. Watch us post on Blue Sky

1:11

a bunch now. We do that. I

1:13

am going to post a link to

1:15

this on Blue Sky and... Where more

1:18

people will see it than they do

1:20

on XV Everything Act. I mean, I

1:22

keep doing my banking on XZ Everything

1:25

App obviously, but, you know, for sharing

1:27

social media stuff, it just makes more

1:29

sense to do it on Blue Ski.

1:31

Anyway, yeah. We're not just talking about

1:34

Manchester City's Five Game losing

1:36

Street because Spurs are responsible

1:38

for 40% of it. But

1:40

we're not... talking about it

1:42

because of that. It's a

1:44

weird situation. I think I think

1:46

the place to start is like

1:49

let's let's contextualize a

1:51

little bit here. Five

1:53

game losing streak is

1:56

like legitimately five alarm

1:58

fire territory for any

2:00

team that thinks of itself as a

2:02

very good team. Whether that's Manchester City,

2:04

like, you know, things of themselves, and

2:06

rightfully so, is they should be the

2:08

best team in the world. If it

2:10

was Tottenham, it would be, like, a

2:13

major concern. Like, if I can't lose

2:15

extreme, it's a legitimately huge deal. Right,

2:17

and what's happened in the league matches

2:19

here, at least, the... League Cup

2:21

lost to Spurs. That was kind

2:23

of a bit more of the

2:26

classic Spurs win over Man City.

2:28

But against Tottenham, against Bournemouth against

2:30

Brighton, they gave up a whole

2:33

bunch of chances. And while eight

2:35

goals is a lot to concede

2:37

from those chances, they gave up

2:40

a whole bunch of chances and

2:42

the hallmark of Pepp Gardiola teams

2:44

has been that that doesn't happen.

2:46

Now, they got a bunch of

2:49

chances themselves in those games. You

2:51

know, a world where they win,

2:53

draw, and lose these three is

2:56

just not that different from the

2:58

world that we're living in right

3:00

now. But the thing is... And

3:03

then they would be four points

3:05

behind Liverpool instead of eight, and

3:07

they would feel like they were

3:10

in less of a crisis. The

3:12

thing is, though, their performance in

3:14

the games before these five matches,

3:17

which we talked about on this

3:19

podcast, I would like to pat

3:21

ourselves on the back a little

3:24

bit for this, if you were

3:26

watching the underlying numbers before the

3:28

cold streak, you would have been

3:31

saying, as we were. City looked

3:33

legitimately worse, but maybe it won't

3:35

matter because they're going to keep

3:37

running hot. And instead literally the

3:40

opposite happened. Yeah, it is quite

3:42

reasonable to look at the stats

3:44

across these five games and say,

3:47

huh, it's really unlikely that they

3:49

lost all five of these games.

3:51

The problem is that you go

3:54

back to the five games before

3:56

that, which they won all of...

3:58

and you would look at those

4:01

five wins and you are also

4:03

forced to say, ha! It's kind

4:05

of unlikely that they would have

4:08

won all five of these games

4:10

and that's what we kept saying

4:12

was different. And so I am

4:15

not like, I am not super

4:17

apt to look at their bad

4:19

run of luck across these five

4:22

games and look at it as

4:24

it allaying my concerns about Manchester

4:26

City. Rather, I do think it's

4:28

a little bit quirky the way

4:31

the last 10 games or so

4:33

have been distributed points-wise, but the

4:35

underlying performances are absolutely cause for

4:38

alarm. But as you also said,

4:40

cause for alarm in Manchester City,

4:42

maybe the question to ask is,

4:45

how many teams? would trade their

4:47

performances for Cause for Alarm Manchester

4:49

Cities. Are we talking 8? Are

4:52

we talking 11? Are we talking

4:54

14? Like, exactly how bad does

4:56

Manchester City cause for alarm make

4:59

that? Right. Because Man City have

5:01

failed to win the Premier League

5:03

title in the Pep Gardiola era.

5:06

The once. Twice. There was the

5:08

first year and then the year

5:10

correct he has that first season

5:13

where like things are not great

5:15

They are a really good top

5:17

four team. He's doing stuff like

5:19

inverting Bakari Sanya into midfield and

5:22

he's realizing that he doesn't have

5:24

Philip Lam and he can't just

5:26

run his his same tactics out.

5:29

It's a really a full adjustment

5:31

season and he takes one adjustment

5:33

season and then they are fully

5:36

operational for just short of a

5:38

decade. And there is really only

5:40

one season in there where they

5:43

aren't obviously the... best team by

5:45

the underlying numbers. And it's not

5:47

the season that they didn't win

5:50

the title. Like, they are never,

5:52

there has not been a season

5:54

where if you discount the table

5:57

and you look at the XG,

5:59

you could not make a very

6:01

reasonable case or in most cases

6:04

just make the obvious case that

6:06

they're the best team. And so

6:08

Man City in the Pep era.

6:10

being in crisis is a different

6:13

kind of thing. On the other

6:15

hand, like the reason that everyone

6:17

picked them to win the title

6:20

this season is because everyone assumes

6:22

that that will continue it, it

6:24

not continue me, is like a

6:27

big story. Yeah, look, I mean

6:29

I think that over the last

6:31

10 games they've played as an

6:34

above average team, but basically as

6:36

a borderline champions league qualifying team.

6:38

And that's like a serious dislocation

6:41

from where they were. And I

6:43

think we've talked about some reasons

6:45

before, but I think it's worth

6:48

reiterating, that to me there's two

6:50

very distinct things going on. The

6:52

defensive side of the ball is

6:55

just obvious. Roger is injured and

6:57

they have absolutely no cover. Maybe...

6:59

And we've been saying this now

7:01

for two months, Pepp Gordiola will

7:04

eventually magic up a solution. But

7:06

as of now, there is no

7:08

solution. They're not, they have not,

7:11

two things, they have not replaced

7:13

Roger in any meaningful way. And

7:15

they have not really changed how

7:18

they play in a recognition of

7:20

the fact that they can't replace

7:22

Roger. They're just giving up a

7:25

lot more counterattacks right up the

7:27

gut. And that's been a hallmark

7:29

of a thing that they haven't

7:32

allowed forever, and now they allow

7:34

it. There's a sort of knock-on

7:36

effect. here, which is that Pep

7:39

has been reacting to a number

7:41

of different things. He did this

7:43

last season too. So it has

7:46

to do with DeBriena being out

7:48

as well, where he's pushing his

7:50

full backs into attack quite a

7:52

bit more. Whether it's playing something

7:55

that looks more like a narrow

7:57

3-3, or something that looks more

7:59

like a narrow-4-2-3-1, Gvardiol is getting

8:02

into the penalty area a lot.

8:04

He's, you know, tied for a

8:06

second on the team in goals.

8:09

Even Walker is getting forward from

8:11

right back. And I think that

8:13

as much as Roger not cleaning

8:16

up in midfield is an issue,

8:18

it is also that he often

8:20

doesn't have an extra guy back.

8:23

Those guys are often tracking back

8:25

and making plays coming back to

8:27

the ball instead of being there

8:30

supporting midfield and defense and defense.

8:32

they're getting forward because the attack

8:34

isn't quite working. So I feel

8:37

like there's it really sort of

8:39

comes from both sides of the

8:41

ball. I agree with that wholeheartedly,

8:43

but I also feel like I

8:46

have one major point to making

8:48

the attack, but a secondary point

8:50

here is also Roger. One of

8:53

the things that Roger's flexibility lets

8:55

you do is move one of

8:57

the five guys into attack. but

9:00

it oftentimes be like it could

9:02

be any of the five in

9:04

a very real way and without

9:07

Roger being the linchpin of that

9:09

it's a much more basic simple

9:11

fullbacks and now I'll get to

9:14

the other attacking point which is

9:16

that like everything still goes through

9:18

all everything everything everything everything still

9:21

goes through all which I guess

9:23

if you're playing the old way

9:25

that Roger was the linchpin of

9:28

It makes sense. Why would you

9:30

want somebody not who is not

9:32

Holland taking a shot when that

9:34

shot could be taken by... Holland,

9:37

but in a system in which

9:39

the fullbacks are pushing forward more,

9:41

and they are, like having wide

9:44

attackers flanking Holland with the idea

9:46

of spacing the field to give

9:48

Holland room in the box, like,

9:51

is much less applicable. They need,

9:53

they should be in theory contributing

9:55

more in the final third if

9:58

the fullbacks are now the ones

10:00

providing the ones providing the ones

10:02

providing the ones providing the ones

10:05

providing the ones providing the ones

10:07

providing the ones providing the ones

10:09

providing the ones providing the ones

10:12

providing the ones providing the ones

10:14

providing the ones providing the ones

10:16

providing the ones providing the ones

10:19

providing the ones providing the ones

10:21

providing the ones providing the ones

10:23

providing the ones providing the ones

10:25

providing the ones providing the ones

10:28

providing the ones providing, And they

10:30

are not. And it is still,

10:32

all running through Holland, with more

10:35

full backs up the field, the

10:37

winger is not really giving you

10:39

a ton. No, DeBroyna, the eight's

10:42

sort of being constrained because the

10:44

defense, the counter-attacking defense is a

10:46

mess, but also just like, behold,

10:49

like the, you know, or Phil

10:51

Photon, who's having a terrible year.

10:53

So you put that all together,

10:56

and it's, it's... Manchester City of

10:58

crisis. And I think that the,

11:00

like, the eight's not getting into,

11:03

because as you say, if you

11:05

have, your full backs get forward,

11:07

your wingers stay wide, you've got

11:10

Holland in the center, well, who's

11:12

making those runs in the half

11:14

space of second man, third man

11:17

runs into the penalty or whatever

11:19

they are, you know, Gundewan was,

11:21

I think, signed to do that,

11:23

and he's 34. I mean, he

11:26

was clearly the guy that two

11:28

years ago did that, right? He

11:30

was the guy who, if it

11:33

wasn't, Holland, was getting not only

11:35

into the 18, but like, into

11:37

the six. It is not clear

11:40

to me he's supposed to be

11:42

doing that now and is unable

11:44

to, because again, you're missing Roger,

11:47

and what are you doing with

11:49

all of the midfielders to make

11:51

up for that? Because like, Matayakovitch

11:54

is not Roger. So

11:56

it wouldn't surprise me if you

11:58

were telling me that Goodwin was

12:01

supposed. to be like more reserved.

12:03

And more to the point, even

12:05

two years ago, one of the

12:07

things that we talked about with

12:10

Citi and their immense degree of

12:12

control is that while Gunnoman would

12:14

get forward and score goals, he

12:17

was always behind the ball. And

12:19

he was getting to the six.

12:21

It was because the ball was

12:23

at the byline. Like he was

12:26

always behind the ball. So if

12:28

you're getting the ball to the

12:30

byline less, then knock on effect

12:33

to that is gonna want being

12:35

further up the field up the

12:37

field. Now that that that's it.

12:39

It's 34, so the fact that

12:42

it's further up the field is

12:44

not actually preventing counter attacks either.

12:46

Yep, and if your full backs

12:49

are pushing up, a lot of

12:51

what you end up doing is

12:53

inverting your wingers. In theory, in

12:56

practice, they're not getting very much

12:58

from that. Right, because the thing

13:00

is that the, if you invert

13:02

your wingers and, like, you're still

13:05

not sending Vardiol to the byline.

13:07

full 2014 style 423.433 stuff with

13:09

his full backs. The full backs

13:12

instead get up to the edge

13:14

of the 18 and occasionally into

13:16

the 18, but not to the

13:18

byline. And if you're doing that

13:21

while you're also inverting your wingers

13:23

and then they're not getting the

13:25

byline either? Like it really gets

13:28

clogged up in some spaces that

13:30

like it's weird because I am

13:32

describing tactical problems in an attack

13:34

that Surely Pepcordiola sees and is

13:37

balancing out something else in some

13:39

way, but like, I don't understand

13:41

why I keep seeing it. Stuff

13:44

is breaking down. And when stuff

13:46

is breaking down, there are a

13:48

number of avenues you could go

13:51

in a similar situation to this.

13:53

If somebody else was the manager,

13:55

if it was happening at some

13:57

other team, it's some other team.

14:00

we would be talking about tactical

14:02

failures from the manager. ideas are

14:04

not working. Pepcordiola gets like excused

14:07

from that discussion. I'm sure somewhere

14:09

there are some people who will

14:11

be mad at me for saying

14:13

that, who will really have been

14:16

waiting like 15 years to be

14:18

to tell you I told you

14:20

so fraudiola. But like it's been

14:23

15 years dude. Pepcordiola gets excused

14:25

from that conversation. So I'm left

14:27

thinking of two different but interconnected

14:29

things. One is basically like we're

14:32

looking for solutions here. And whatever

14:34

we are seeing, like the things

14:36

we are trying are not working.

14:39

And two is, I know the

14:41

solution I want, I'm having trouble

14:43

getting the players to effectively execute

14:45

that solution. And obviously there's some

14:48

overlap there between those two possibilities.

14:50

And of course, the synthesis is

14:52

like. I don't have

14:54

the players I need to fix

14:57

the problems that we've got, which

14:59

is something that we have been

15:01

raising concerns about for a while

15:03

now. But like we kept saying,

15:06

like you keep stretching this, you

15:08

keep stretching this, you keep stretching

15:10

this, you keep stretching this, eventually

15:12

the cracks and the fissures will

15:15

be too big for Pep Gordiola

15:17

to paper over with his tactics.

15:19

Everybody is constrained by talent in

15:21

the end. And that's what this

15:24

looks like to me. It's exactly

15:26

what it looks like to me.

15:28

And the, you know. You could

15:30

say, and we talked about this

15:33

before, like why didn't they go

15:35

and get like at least one

15:37

fullback who is a fullback? Because

15:39

one thing they did in building

15:42

this team to the very precise

15:44

specifications of the sort of perfected

15:46

three guy attack of DeBriena Holland

15:48

and Grelish was go and get

15:50

centerbacks to play fullback. And guys

15:53

who were properly centerbacks defensively and

15:55

big wise, but could play out

15:57

wide and help move the ball

15:59

up the field. But the biggest

16:02

thing that they are obviously missing...

16:04

is Rahim Sterling, Leroy Zane, Riod

16:06

Marez, wingers who score goals. And

16:08

they didn't try to get a

16:11

single one of those. And to

16:13

the extent that they had one

16:15

of them in Phil Phoden, he's

16:17

now playing internally and further from

16:20

Goll, and to the extent that

16:22

they had two of them in

16:24

Julian Alvarez, which, like, that's a

16:26

little bit of an argumentative definition

16:29

of what Alvarez does do. He

16:31

certainly scores goals. Certainly scores goals

16:33

and I sort of think in

16:35

this season that's how he would

16:38

have been deployed and were he

16:40

still in team They sold him

16:42

and did not replace him. So

16:44

you know not only have they

16:47

moved fully away from like those

16:49

guys who were on the roster

16:51

and not replaced them They've actively

16:53

went out and got another different

16:55

profile of winger to replace the

16:58

minutes, right? They went out and

17:00

they got Got Savino is a

17:02

little bit of an exaggeration, but

17:04

like claimed. Yes. But clearly the

17:07

intent was those are the guys

17:09

that we want. Grelish Doku and

17:11

Savino are the guys that we

17:13

want on this squad in those

17:16

positions. And like that's a very

17:18

clear profile of guys who play

17:20

wide and move the ball into

17:22

the box for somebody else. All

17:25

of them. That's what they all

17:27

do. And look, to some degree,

17:29

I get it, man. Like, if

17:31

you can have Holland take a

17:34

shot, you would rather have Holland

17:36

take that shot than anybody else.

17:38

But if you've constructed a machine

17:40

that is so specific to that

17:43

goal, and then a couple of

17:45

parts break down. And you have

17:47

enough money to have fail-safe systems

17:49

should you so choose? The fact

17:52

that you choose not to is

17:54

a decision. It's a strategic choice.

17:56

Yeah, it just looks like a...

17:58

team that was precision tooled to

18:00

do one thing and as such

18:03

not built to adapt to relatively

18:05

minor problems. To what? Yes, to

18:07

relatively minor problems, but like... And

18:09

it's facing relatively major problems. Right,

18:12

right, right, right. I mean, that's...

18:14

Last year, they faced relatively minor

18:16

problems and didn't really adapt, but

18:18

we're able to pretty much white

18:21

knuckles through it without... too much

18:23

of a problem when they had

18:25

Alvarez. And when, you know, this

18:27

year, the problems are bigger and

18:30

so they have created knock-on-effect problems

18:32

all over the place, all over

18:34

the place. Like, you know, one

18:36

of the things you're talking about

18:39

is, you know, why didn't they

18:41

go and get a full-back, right?

18:43

And I suspect one answer they

18:45

could have given you is we

18:48

have a fullback if we want

18:50

to play with the traditional fullback

18:52

in Kyle Walker. And as it

18:54

turns out, at this point in

18:57

his career, Kyle Walker may be

18:59

a fast centerback playing fullback. That

19:01

when you ask him to hit

19:03

top speed three times a game

19:05

to cover, that's great. And if

19:08

you ask him to run up

19:10

and down the field that his

19:12

age, the entire game, you're not

19:14

getting good Kyle Walker anymore. Plus

19:17

he's been hurt, which again, which

19:19

again, old, you should factor in

19:21

these possibilities. But I would absolutely

19:23

say that like, I would not

19:26

be surprised if the plan was,

19:28

what do we, hey, Pepp, what

19:30

do we do if we need

19:32

to use full backs? And the

19:35

answer was, what are you talking

19:37

about? We have one of the

19:39

best right backs in the game

19:41

of dialogue. And I think we

19:44

were having a conversation online earlier

19:46

today about. Holland and you know

19:48

a significant part of what has

19:50

happened certainly a big part of

19:53

what happened in the Tott and

19:55

I mean he got seven shots

19:57

and he got seven shots in

19:59

good positions and he's also Holland

20:01

so a couple of the shots

20:04

he took from not very good

20:06

position like were rockets off of

20:08

the bar and he got seven

20:10

shots against Brighton. He got five

20:13

shots against Bournemouth. So 19 shots

20:15

in his last three matches for

20:17

3.1xG in those three matches. One

20:19

goal. That kind of a stretch

20:22

over three matches is going to

20:24

happen. But man, like one thing

20:26

I would really say here is

20:28

if The goal

20:31

is to get Holland shots. The

20:33

fact that you get Holland's seven

20:35

shots and the team gets 11,

20:38

versus Holland getting five shots and

20:40

the team gets 22, you would

20:42

obviously have preferred to have the

20:44

latter. And, you know, I've said

20:47

like two or three times in

20:49

the podcast so far, like, of

20:51

course you would want Holland to

20:54

take the shot instead of somebody

20:56

else, if that was something you

20:58

could engineer. But how many shots

21:01

do you want? to sacrifice for

21:03

each additional Holland shot is a

21:05

really open question. And I think

21:07

when City are clicking on all

21:10

cylinders, getting Holland the ball doesn't

21:12

constrain all of the other stuff.

21:14

But it sure seems to constrain

21:17

it when they're facing these problems.

21:19

Early Holland is not a like

21:21

black hole of a striker where

21:24

you get him the ball and

21:26

he's going to shoot. Correct. Early

21:28

Holland is, even for city, you

21:30

can see how well rounded his

21:33

game is. And for city, he

21:35

is playing a role which is

21:37

asking him to really do one

21:40

thing. When he was at Dortmund,

21:42

he did a lot of stuff.

21:44

But even in this role, he

21:46

has typically been in the 0.15.

21:49

2 expected assists per 90. He

21:51

gets five eight assists per season.

21:53

He could easily be feeding someone

21:56

else some of these chances. There

21:58

just isn't someone for him to

22:00

do that too. He just like

22:03

gets the shots off. And I

22:05

will say that this aspect of

22:07

Guardiola, this is not new. Over

22:09

the years at the times when

22:12

we've looked at Guardiola team struggling,

22:14

the thing that goes missing is

22:16

the volume of shots. Almost always.

22:19

That like when those teams are

22:21

firing on all cylinders, they are

22:23

getting great shots. and lots of

22:26

shots, but they're not necessarily getting

22:28

more great shots. And then when

22:30

those teams start to struggle, they

22:32

do a decent job of keeping

22:35

the great shots pretty elevated, but

22:37

everything else falls apart. And so,

22:39

you know, the, you know, two

22:42

shots from distance here, three shots

22:44

offset pieces there are the kinds

22:46

of things that fall away. As

22:48

it turns out, you really do

22:51

need them both to be dominant.

22:53

And it's a little bit weird

22:55

and interesting and persistently weird and

22:58

interesting about Gordiola, that, like, contra

23:00

most teams in the world. The

23:02

thing that goes away is everything

23:05

that isn't the best set of

23:07

shots, but that's consistently what's happened.

23:09

And this is, like, just dramatically,

23:11

like, for a longer stretch of

23:14

time and more so, that same

23:16

dynamic. Yeah, exactly. We've seen this

23:18

most classically sort of in their

23:21

bad champions league runs. You get

23:23

games, you would get games like

23:25

this, they would, they would get

23:28

knocked out of champs. Not that

23:30

like they were, again, you know,

23:32

not like they were really bad,

23:34

but they would struggle and what

23:37

would happen would be just super

23:39

long stretches of nothing, and one

23:41

or two good chances that don't

23:44

get scored. in the five games

23:46

before the five games we saw

23:48

this a lot where like they

23:50

would be you know they went

23:53

like three games in a row

23:55

where they came back from down

23:57

a goal i think some numbers

24:00

i know some numbers i've got

24:02

I think that's rightish. It's truthy.

24:04

But like for wolves, for example,

24:07

they were down 1-0 from like

24:09

the 10th minute on and then

24:11

they scored two very late goals

24:13

to win. And those two goals

24:16

were great opportunities. And those are

24:18

the extra G at the end

24:20

looks okay. But what you saw

24:23

was long stretches of not very

24:25

much. And then those two really

24:27

good chances at the end break

24:30

through. And it is very indicative

24:32

of like, he will not sacrifice

24:34

control while seeking great, to like

24:36

make up for. And they are

24:39

not sacrificing control in possession even

24:41

now, even with the defensive woes.

24:43

But what's happening is being in

24:46

control of the possession is also.

24:48

Not enough on the defensive side

24:50

of the ball. And that's like,

24:52

to me, that's kind of pure

24:55

Roger. Yeah. But that is like,

24:57

if you were to say like,

24:59

what is pushing kind of scuffling

25:02

struggles into like full blown crisis

25:04

territory, that's where it is for

25:06

me. That's like the major difference

25:09

between how we've seen them struggle

25:11

before on the attacking side of

25:13

the ball, sometimes for a few

25:15

games here, a month there, to

25:18

like, you know. Boy, how do

25:20

they pull out of this? Right,

25:22

because this is worse. A city

25:25

since the Rodry injury, I don't

25:27

think, and I would want to

25:29

go back over this, but I

25:32

would bet that other than maybe

25:34

during his first season at City,

25:36

I don't know if there is

25:38

a stretch of 10 games. Not

25:41

quite 10 games. What is the

25:43

worst seven-game stretch Pepp has had

25:45

by XG? I'd want to look

25:48

at that. I think this might

25:50

be it. Yeah, it's either this

25:52

or two years ago. Holland comes

25:55

in and spends the first month

25:57

and a half scoring for fun

25:59

and then they have a month

26:01

and a half where they struggle

26:04

which is why they have to

26:06

be perfect on the back half

26:08

of the season and that's where

26:11

I'm drawing a lot of the

26:13

hey like like a lot of

26:15

the information about what they look

26:17

like when they struggle from is

26:20

that period of time it's and

26:22

it is in some ways reminiscent

26:24

but the other thing to keep

26:27

in mind when you think about

26:29

Roger and Roger's influence is showing

26:31

up. The first season, Fernandino was

26:34

still there. And Roger increasingly played

26:36

a video, but Fernandino was one

26:38

of the centerbacks. You know, it

26:40

was not an abrupt transition. It

26:43

was a managed transition. And, you

26:45

know, to adapt the system to

26:47

the differences in their games. And

26:50

right, like, the major difference is

26:52

under Fernandino, you could empty out

26:54

the middle and attack, and Fernandino

26:57

would just... Clean everything up in

26:59

transition and pivot you into attack

27:01

very quickly. Whereas with Roger, you

27:03

clog the middle, but because Roger

27:06

is tactically brilliant, you can clog

27:08

the middle and let him be

27:10

the lynchpin that lets a thousand

27:13

different attacking overlaps, you know, thrive,

27:15

whether it's him or somebody else,

27:17

with him covering within a more

27:19

populated structure. Right, and you can

27:22

push fewer players forward because Roger

27:24

is going to find the pass

27:26

that makes like a 6v8 work.

27:29

Also because you don't know like

27:31

where the, you know, instead of

27:33

two guys pushing forward, you're pushing

27:36

forward one guy, but the opposition

27:38

doesn't know which guy and from

27:40

where. So you're much more able

27:42

tactically flexibly to create limited overlaps

27:45

because... Defences can't prepare, right? Like,

27:47

defenses can't, like, shadow one side

27:49

or the other, or clog the

27:52

middle because that's where the, right?

27:54

So often here, okay, this team

27:56

wants two verse one overlaps on

27:59

the outside, or this team wants

28:01

three verse two in the middle,

28:03

or whatever it is, like they

28:05

have the area of the field

28:08

where they have an advantage. What

28:10

city did at their peak was

28:12

say, no, like for 10 minutes

28:15

we might want two v one

28:17

on the right, for the next

28:19

seven minutes we want three v

28:21

two in the middle, then we'll

28:24

go back to the right and

28:26

then to the left. And you

28:28

can make those, you could flex

28:31

into any of those things from

28:33

the things from the five guys.

28:35

primarily because Roger was underpinning at

28:38

all. Right, and I think that

28:40

this goes to the sort of

28:42

like perfectly machine tooled aspect of

28:44

that team. Yeah. Because that team

28:47

at its very best, was I

28:49

think the best football team I've

28:51

ever seen. It's reasonable. I would

28:54

like probably say some of the

28:56

Barcelona, the messy Barcelona teams, but

28:58

like. Incredibly reasonable arguments made. It's

29:01

absolutely a fair point, and like,

29:03

you know, maybe having the best

29:05

player of all time at his

29:07

peak was more important than... So,

29:10

it was the most perfect football

29:12

team I've ever watched. Yeah. And

29:14

it was perfect because it wasn't

29:17

that exciting. It was perfect because

29:19

you could do so much with

29:21

Greelish and DeBroyna and Holland. That

29:23

you just add a little bit

29:26

here or there and it would

29:28

work and the other team would

29:30

be stifled the entire match. If

29:33

Barcelona was Pepguardiola figuring out how

29:35

to maximize Messie and using lots

29:37

of other great players to do

29:40

it. Manchester City is Pepguardiola figuring

29:42

out... how to maximize Pepcordial's system

29:44

with 11 guys and getting the

29:46

most out of 11 guys. The

29:49

idea was that nobody on that

29:51

team sacrifices what they do best

29:53

and that everybody gets put in

29:56

a position to do their best

29:58

by Pepcordial. Like when you conceive

30:00

of it that way, oh, getting

30:03

guys who are good at getting

30:05

the ball into the box and

30:07

getting hollowed, getting on the end

30:09

of things in the box, makes

30:12

a tremendous amount of sense. But

30:14

like, you get really, really handicapped

30:16

all of a sudden by the

30:19

overarching ethos of what you're doing

30:21

in a way that you wouldn't

30:23

if you were approaching things somewhat

30:25

differently. Yeah, and one important point

30:28

about that team was I keep

30:30

saying grealish, but really grealish and

30:32

Marez split time. They would have

30:35

either grealish or Marez as the

30:37

winger in that three-man attack, and

30:39

if they wanted to go crazy,

30:42

they could play both of them.

30:44

But Marez and it's also grealish

30:46

at that age gave you a

30:48

lot more in the penalty area

30:51

than Savino and Doku do. They

30:55

also had Foden coming off the

30:57

bench as like the off ball

30:59

back post running winger. And then

31:01

by the end of it, like,

31:03

Relish is contributing less and Foden

31:05

is contributing more. And, you know,

31:07

you could flex it in a

31:09

number of ways, you could put

31:11

Bernard a Silva up there, if

31:13

you wanted more of a possessiony

31:16

type thing, sort of doing the

31:18

same, like, you had a lot

31:20

of options, even as the ethos

31:22

was quite clear. All of those,

31:24

like, realish becoming less of a

31:26

shot getter, using Bernardo Silva as

31:28

a control tactical winger, you know,

31:30

and having Fodin back off of

31:32

that back post running off, you

31:34

know, touches in the penalty area

31:36

player into being a quasi-10, all

31:38

of those lead to the team.

31:41

having much less ability to do

31:43

something other than the thing they

31:45

are perfectly machine tool to do.

31:47

And now here we are. And

31:49

look, I think, you know, DeBroyna

31:51

goes down, but Roger doesn't. Roger

31:53

goes down, but DeBroyna doesn't. You

31:55

know, they have their full complement

31:57

of centerbacks instead of like scrambling

31:59

by with which whatever two were

32:01

healthy in a given week. All

32:03

of these things mitigate. Oscar Bob

32:06

doesn't get hurt, I guess. Like,

32:08

I mean, I think that they

32:10

thought he was going to like

32:12

step in and contribute in the

32:14

same way we could lose steps

32:16

in and contributes in the back

32:18

half of the field. Not that

32:20

I think Riga Lewis is that

32:22

good, but like, if you're building

32:24

and growing a team and part

32:26

of your goal is at the

32:28

end of the thing, you get

32:31

this set of minutes to the

32:33

young kids coming through to develop

32:35

them. Like, Oscar Bob is better

32:37

than whatever, like, option you're left

32:39

within his absence. So you do

32:41

have, like, a real domino effect

32:43

of injuries. And... I suppose

32:45

you could make the argument that

32:48

at the time when Gordiola was

32:50

going to have to flex to

32:52

something else, his ability to flex

32:55

was also constrained, as well as

32:57

the top-end talent loss. But it's

32:59

not like we're talking about a

33:02

team that was very deep to

33:04

begin with here. Right, if we're

33:06

already talking about the problems that

33:09

come from one of their youth

33:11

players getting injured, or Mateo Kovachich...

33:13

getting injured, like shockingly, Makatayo Kovachich

33:16

can't play 90 minutes, 100 minutes

33:18

every week. This is just the

33:20

way you've got this team. But

33:23

I think that we've talked through

33:25

what we think is wrong. And

33:27

we've sort of bounced between this

33:30

isn't that bad, this is bad

33:32

for city. It's a little bit

33:34

hard to, I'd like to sort

33:37

of try to lock it in

33:39

somewhere. Where do we think this

33:41

team is through the rest of

33:44

the season? And I'd say, where

33:46

do we think this team is

33:48

through the rest of the season

33:51

if PEP doesn't have some new

33:53

genius idea with this talent? If

33:55

the problem is that PEP is

33:58

constrained by the squad, that of

34:00

course PEP has had a... your

34:02

hand in building. If that's the

34:05

problem, and therefore there is not

34:07

some magic version of city walking

34:09

through that door where all of

34:12

this works, exactly how bad is

34:14

it? Am I assuming Kevin DeBroyna

34:16

plays a bunch of minutes or

34:19

that he doesn't? He's going to

34:21

play some games, but he's going

34:23

to play a bunch. They're like

34:26

worse than Liverpool and Arsenal, but

34:28

probably somewhat better than Chelsea. That's

34:30

where I would put them. Exactly.

34:33

And teams of that caliber upon

34:35

the champions league before, they'll probably

34:37

get somewhat more from Foden and

34:40

DeBroyna combined than they have since

34:42

Roger went down, but that's probably

34:44

not as good as Liverpool and

34:47

Arsenal. Yeah, exactly. And teams of

34:49

that caliber have won the champions

34:51

league before. Like, they just have.

34:54

I mean, Liverpool has won the

34:56

Premier League before. I

34:58

mean, the other thing that I do

35:00

think we should keep in mind here

35:02

in this context is, yes, they are

35:04

worse than Liverpool and Arsenal, but also

35:07

on an absolute scale, Liverpool and Arsenal

35:09

are somewhat worse than Premier League winners

35:11

of previous years. So it's a little

35:13

bit of a down year at the

35:15

very top of the Premier League for

35:17

all sorts of attendant reasons. So the

35:19

fact that they are like third behind

35:21

the Premier League's two best teams is

35:24

still really, it is saying something meaningful

35:26

here. them being third between behind the

35:28

two best teams just is meaningful like

35:30

true they just kept winning the title

35:32

and being the best team when they

35:34

did it they were like yeah but

35:36

like conceivably right you could imagine a

35:39

world where Liverpool were on a hundred

35:41

point pace and arson were on 97

35:43

point pace and we were saying okay

35:45

Manchester City is third but they're on

35:47

a 95 point pace and like like

35:49

we expect them to finish with around

35:51

95 points and Yeah, it's meaningful

35:54

that they're worse than these two teams,

35:56

but in a lot of years they'd

35:58

still win the title. I

36:00

think what we're saying now

36:02

is somewhat more, is this

36:04

somewhat bigger dip than that,

36:06

right? Yes. It is not

36:08

caused by those two teams

36:10

getting much better. Right. And

36:12

so like, you know, when

36:14

I think in Manchester City,

36:16

I think of them right

36:18

now, it was like an

36:20

83, 85 point kind of

36:22

caliber team. And I think

36:24

83-ish, and I think that

36:26

like Arsenal and Liverpool are

36:28

in like an 85 to

36:31

87-ish range. Which is like,

36:33

those are good teams. It's

36:35

really good teams. But it's

36:37

a dip. It's unquestionably a

36:39

real dip. So we are

36:41

now 12 matches into the

36:43

Premier League season. Like 14

36:45

matches in the La League

36:47

season. They just keep playing

36:49

games in Spain. We've got

36:51

a bunch of games done.

36:53

And so it's a really

36:55

interesting time to take a

36:57

look at player numbers. You're

36:59

starting to get meaningful samples,

37:01

a thousand minutes of play,

37:03

of play. And there's some

37:05

players who have made real

37:07

changes, real steps forward, or

37:09

perhaps looks like they're consolidating

37:11

weird stuff. So we are

37:13

going to be doing a

37:15

bunch of Moussa Dambele podcast

37:17

this week, where we are

37:19

doing some player profiles. Patreon.com/double

37:22

pivot, you can take a

37:24

look at those new player

37:26

profile podcasts that will be

37:28

coming out shortly. Cheers.