Pep Guardiola couldn’t save Man City from another Champions League quarterfinal elimination for the third season; it was déjà vu all over again for the Manchester club as they lost to French club Lyon 3-1 on a night when Guardiola’s tactical genius failed him.
Guardiola’s UCL Deja vu
It was a nightmare for Pep as his team was behind in the 24th minute despite having the largest share of the possession. The second half of the game turned out the same but was able to pull one back from the Premier League Player of the season Kevin De Bruyne in the 69th minute, but the introduction of Moussa Dembele in the 75th minute marked a turning point in the match as he scored two goals to put the match beyond Man City’s reach.
For all of the Catalan tactician’s genius, he has always found the Champions League a mountain too high to climb in his time even while he was at Bayern Munich. Pundits have faulted Pep for always over tinkering and the use of a flawed tactical plan in the Champions League, fielding three center-back against Lyon seems to be a major tactical blunder.
Manchester City’s Archiles heel
Since joining the club in 2016 Guardiola has not been able to advance beyond the quarterfinal stage, losing to Monaco in the round of 16 on away goal rules despite a 6-6 scoreline, in his only trophyless season in England, 2017/18 season was no different as he lost to Liverpool 5-1 on aggregate, history repeated itself in 2018/19 this time around losing to Tottenham, another quarterfinal exit this season to French club Lyon makes it a third straight quarterfinal exit from the competition despite dominating English football.
Guardiola since his arrival has spent over 300 million pounds on defenders alone and almost the same amount on attackers, but as not been able to deliver the holy grail to the blue side of Manchester, due to the recent elimination from the competition rumors have been flying circulating linking the Spaniard to his former club Barcelona who were also disgraced out of the competition by an all-round Bayern team 8-2.
stormy waters ahead…
The club could have missed out next season’s Champions League campaign after a two years ban was placed on them by UEFA for flaunting financial fair play rules which have been overruled by a contentious appeal decision from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Judging from the manager’s record of moving on when things don’t go his way, rumors could quickly become an official press conference.
Better still, Guardiola would have to go back to the drawing board and find a cure to his team’s bad outing in the Champions League, a solution that would most likely involve some amount of spending AGAIN, with Napoli defender Koulibably a prime transfer target, hopefully, he will stabilize the team alongside new arrival Nathan Ake
