No Case for Guardiola's Defence, Especially Compared to Tottenham's

In the same way it's said pets often resemble their owners, it can be a similar occupational malady that afflicts football managers and their teams. Ashen-faced and swaying from side to side, Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola's post-match interview after last week's 4-0 defeat at Everton was so discombobulating it could have induced seasickness in Sir Francis Drake.

On the day, it was his defenders all at sea. A less contrary figure than the Spaniard would have threatened to throw the lot of them into the Mersey.

Instead, it has been reported Guardiola told his side they had played well, having informed the television cameras earlier that he loved his players, perhaps in the same way Norman Bates loved his mother. If Guardiola takes to the touchline on Saturday dressed as John Stones, it's time to inform the fourth official. 

To talk of football in terms of defence, midfield and attack when dissecting a game with football's most post-modern manager is a bit like being invited to an audience with Garry Kasparov and asking him to remind you how a knight can move across the chessboard. However, in layman's terms, City's defence is more porous than a sieve made of toilet paper.

During his reign as Barcelona manager, Guardiola once named a starting XI for a league game against Villarreal with not a single defender in it. It is perhaps the closest he has ever got to fulfilling his dream of playing with 11 midfielders, with a back three comprised of Javier Mascherano, Sergio Busquets and Seydou Keita. They won 5-0.

At times at Goodison Park, it looked as though he was repeating the experiment. He would have got away with it too, were it not for a teamsheet that betrayed the fact City had started with five midfield men. It seems false defenders have never been so in vogue.

The worst league defeat of Guardiola's managerial career was not even the first time City have conceded four goals this season. To go from beating West Ham United 5-0 to losing 4-0 at Everton in consecutive games screams of a lack of control. This is pre-Sheikh Mansour Manchester City. Andy Morrison could sort out that back four in a week.

While Guardiola continues to wear the look of a man who has gone to bed with Cindy Crawford and woken up with Michael Crawford, his managerial counterpart in Saturday teatime's potentially gargantuan clash between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur is a model of contentment.

Mauricio Pochettino resembles his team, too. Serious without ever being staid, playful when the occasion allows for it but never before it, he seems in absolute control of a situation that has seen Tottenham win their last seven matches in all competitions, including six Premier League victories on the bounce.

In those six matches, Spurs have scored 19 goals and conceded three. They boast the best defensive record in the Premier League, with just 14 goals having been conceded all season.

The 26 goals Manchester City have shipped is matched by Southampton in 13th, while 16th-placed Middlesbrough have conceded four fewer. No side in the top six has conceded more.

It's not so much the numbers that are disconcerting than a foreboding sense City might concede every time they cede possession. It's a good job they enjoy so much of the ball. Without it, they less leave the back door off the latch than have it swung wide-open with a flashing neon sign above it advertising free laptops and goals.

It is at the back where any comparison between the two sides tips the scales so far in Spurs' favour it's hard to see how Guardiola will be able to find a remedy to get City on an equal footing between now and the campaign's close.

That's especially true if Spurs extend a winning run against City in the league to four matches, with a 2-0 victory in the reverse fixture in October the moment Guardiola's stardust lost a little of its sheen. Prior to losing at White Hart Lane, City had won 10 and drawn one of their first 11 games. Since then, only seven more wins have followed in nearly four months.

Pochettino was perhaps the first Premier League manager to set up his team to beat City rather than contain them—a tactical shift that has been bastardized by all and sundry since. If Spurs complete the double, they will be six clear of City, who could be as low as sixth by the end of the weekend and 13 points shy of Chelsea. For context, they could also be level on points with Spurs and within seven points of the table toppers.

The common line coming out of Manchester is that Guardiola will need at least another couple of transfer windows to get it right, but given City's record in terms of defensive recruitment, it will take a significant improvement on the part of director of football Txiki Begiristain. They weren't always singing from the same hymn sheet at Barcelona, either.

Each of the past three close seasons has seen the arrival of a centre-half with a price tag so weighty by rights Guardiola should be able to field them in a back three and never concede a goal again. The combined fee for Stones, Nicolas Otamendi and Eliaquim Mangala doesn't leave much change, if any, out of £120 million. Still if Hollywood ever fancies doing a remake of The Three Stooges, there's a chance City could recoup their losses.

Were it not for an ankle-ligament injury suffered in last week's 4-0 defeat of West Bromwich Albion that could rule Jan Vertonghen out until April, Spurs would have started on Saturday with a back three comprising the Belgian, his compatriot Toby Alderweireld and Eric Dier that could lay claim to being one of the most solid in Europe. It was assembled for in the region of £25 million.

That's not a slight on City, but it underlines how value can be found in a market saturated with average players at exorbitant prices. Vertonghen's likely replacement will be either Ben Davies or Kevin Wimmer. The former moved to north London from Swansea City, while Wimmer cost just £4.3 million. Danny Rose and Kyle Walker were £1 million and £4.5 million, respectively.

Guardiola must look at Pochettino's options and weep great, big, salty tears. Any of Vertonghen, Alderweireld or Dier would fit into his ideology of playing out from the back like a glove. Each make a mockery of the idea Stones should be exempt from criticism for a catalogue of errors he has committed on the grounds he's trying to play the "right way," as if stepping out from the back and not losing possession deserves equal billing with Christ the Redeemer or Machu Picchu.

To be fair to Stones, as Everton's fourth goal illuminates—when the ball fortuitously fell to Ademola Lookman as the 22-year-old attempted to hammer the ball out of play rather than pass it—he's so out of luck at the minute that if he won the lottery he'd probably lose the giant cheque on the way home. 

In contrast, there's not a manager in the world who wouldn't take Alderweireld in a shot. He'd walk into any other Premier League side. There was a lovely stat that surfaced last season noting how in each of the past seven seasons, Alderweireld has played for sides that have conceded the fewest or second-fewest goals in their respective leagues. That's a spell that circumnavigates four clubs (Ajax, Atletico Madrid, Southampton [loan] and Spurs) and three countries. He's so tight he probably owes himself a fiver. I'd bet him the same amount he extends that run to eight seasons.

He pings a pass like Rory McIlroy pings a golf ball. He is a goal threat and rarely gets injured. But more important than any of that is the fact he's a proper defender. In the current climate where football's Stasi report any such utterances to the higher authorities (usually the Twitter police) with a disdain usually reserved for an Englishman in Union Jack shorts smothering fillet steak with HP sauce, it seems an antiquated statement to make. It's also a true one. 

Whether it is Guardiola or Begiristain most responsible for failing to address City's obvious issue in the full-back areas over the close season is a matter of contention, though that the club has spent nigh on £500 million under the latter's regime and not a penny has gone on full-backs says plenty.

Both should be embarrassed that zero of a weighty summer spend was dedicated to a problem so obvious it should have been fitted with a siren until it was resolved. Aleksandar Kolarov and Gael Clichy are 31, Pablo Zabaleta 32, and Bacary Sagna a year older still.

Given Guardiola was officially confirmed as Manuel Pellegrini's replacement on February 1, 2016, it seems remarkable how unbalanced City's squad is in relation to the length of time he had to plan who he wanted to bring in.

Especially when, according to ESPN FC's Mark Ogden: "The signings of Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling in the summer of 2015 were done with City director of football Txiki Begiristain well aware of Guardiola's admiration for the players."

Each of the top six have at least one full-back/wing-back, if not a pair, that are a key part of their respective attacking arsenal.

There have been few more edifying sights in the Premier League this season than watching Chelsea wing-backs Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses' indefatigable raids down either flank, often in unison as they meet each others' crosses.

Spurs have the best pair in Rose and Walker, the finest English double act since Morecambe and Wise. Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy will again have to decide over the summer whether he wants to run a selling club or a successful one.

Likewise, Nathaniel Clyne and James Milner for Liverpool provide penetrative width that allows Jurgen Klopp's side to dominate centrally by having an interchangeable front six, none of whom are tied to the touchline. Arsenal and Manchester United—in Hector Bellerin and Antonio Valencia, respectively—have punchy drive and pace down the right, even if on the opposite wing their equivalents are more prosaic counterbalances.

City's full-backs do not compare well. Guardiola's early-season experiment in telling Clichy and Sagna to move inside and play as auxiliary holding midfielders whenever City had possession—aping what he'd asked Philipp Lahm and David Alaba to do at Bayern Munich—brings to mind the expression you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and was quickly ditched.

Kolarov has been utilised as centre-half to mixed results—very mixed. The Serb is out of contract in the summer and will be lucky to prolong his stay in Manchester.

Zabaleta as a midfield sitter of late has been unconvincing, with his performance against Everton recalling a dads vs. lads match as Tom Davies routinely skipped past him.

If Pochettino's decision to move from a back four to a back three was motivated in no small part to getting the in-form Rose and Walker as high up the pitch as possible, Guardiola's use of three at the back (usually at home in a 3-2-2-3 formation) seems at least partly decreed by a desire not to play any of his specialist full-backs.

In December's 3-1 home defeat to Chelsea, neither Jesus Navas nor Leroy Sane looked comfortable at wing-back. They looked like wingers playing out of position, while employing Sterling in the same role seems reductive given what Guardiola was coaxing out of him in the first part of the season, when City won their first 10 matches.

No conversation about City's defence is complete without reference to Claudio Bravo. The Everton game was the nadir in what will surely now be remembered as an annus horribilis for the Chilean. Failing to make a single save might have gone unnoticed had he not conceded four goals from as many shots.

According to Martin Laurence of WhoScored.com (h/t the Guardian): "Bravo's save success (55.4 per cent) rate is the fourth-worst of any Premier League goalkeeper to make at least 10 appearances in a season since 2009-10, though it's still not the lowest in the current campaign."

Well, that's something.

In his six seasons at City, the political hot potato that is Joe Hart averaged a shot-success rate of 71.8 per cent. He might not be great with his feet, but neither is he afflicted with a penchant for making himself as small as humanely possible whenever faced with a one-on-one situation. Bravo is like an inverted Peter Schmeichel. He could avoid being detected playing a game of hide-and-seek in a telephone box.

The Bravo situation is Guardiola at his most stubborn. When he looks at a goalkeeper, the first thing he notices is their feet. It's an odd interpretation of the position, but not one he'd counter changing.

At a push, he might consider a switch in personnel, if not philosophy, with Bravo's suitability for the Premier League to be given due consideration over the summer. It's this commitment to his philosophy that wins a loyal band of acolytes, even if the sky hasn't been blue in Manchester so far.

In midweek, Guardiola celebrated his 46th birthday with a cinema trip to see La La Land with several of his players. It's likely he'll have empathised with Ryan Gosling's character Sebastian, a jazz purist in a world that has stopped listening. Where they differ is Sebastian at one point sells out and plays in a more commercially minded band.

Guardiola would no less make a concession than Ernest Hemingway would have, or Pablo Picasso or Jimi Hendrix. He might be a pain in the arse to interview; he might not even make it work at Manchester City, but he's no less an artist than any of the rest of them. To expect him to change is perhaps a lack of an imagination—on our part, not his.

Maybe that's his defence.