Manchester City's Failings Underline Just How Good Alex Ferguson Was

There was something almost expected about Manchester City’s Champions League defeat to CSKA Moscow on Wednesday night. There were no boos from the Etihad Stadium—those who hadn’t left early—when full-time blew on the loss and perhaps on City’s European aspirations this season.

It was a moment that epitomised the Sky Blues’ Champions League campaign to date. In a season which, come success or failure, will come to be defined by their European exploits, City have looked flat and completely unprepared for what the continent’s great and good would throw at them.

Of course, City’s struggles in Europe have been augmented by similar toil in the Premier League. Just 10 games into the new season, Manuel Pellegrini’s side already trail Chelsea by six points. City’s title defence, and season in general, is faltering.

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Pellegrini’s struggles this season, and Roberto Mancini’s in 2012-13, demonstrate just how difficult it can be to defend a league title. The challenge of motivating players who have already achieved it all can be too much for some managers.

Not for Alex Ferguson, though, who masterminded six successful title defences from 13 league triumphs. The former Manchester United manager may be enjoying his retirement from the game, but he still casts a shadow over the Premier League, not least over City and Pellegrini.

The Chilean’s apparent inability to inspire his team to a successful title defence only serves to bolster Ferguson’s reputation as the greatest manager European football has ever produced.

Regardless of what his United side had achieved the season before, Fergie’s sides, almost without exception, always took to the pitch driven and stimulated to prove their supremacy all over again. It was on this determinism that the Scot founded a dynasty at Old Trafford.

Ferguson knew the value of experience when it came to mounting a title defence. “At this moment in time we have to rely on our experience and make sure we do not get carried away with a knee-jerk reaction,” said the Scot—as per BBC Sport—with his United team trailing Chelsea by five points in 2007.

The Red Devils would go on to claim a league and Champions League double that season.

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The problem for Pellegrini is that the wise heads he should be able to call upon to drag his team through this rough spell are the very ones that are causing him trouble in the first place.

Take Yaya Toure, for instance. Was the Ivorian’s petulant lash out at CSKA’s Georgi Milanov the behaviour of an experienced dressing room figurehead? Hardly. The same could be said of Samir Nasri, who was lucky to escape red himself for a rash kick out late on against Moscow.

City aren’t the first English footballing superpower to find it tough going on the continent. In fact, United under Ferguson found it difficult to translate Premier League supremacy into Champions League prowess in the early days of the competition.

It wasn’t until Ferguson recognised the need for tactical tweaking that United started to realise their European potential. Soon enough he turned the club into a bona-fide Champions League powerhouse, making the competition’s last 16 in 15 out of 17 seasons.

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As was the case with Roberto Mancini, Pellegrini’s hesitance to recalibrate his European approach is costing him.

And yet for some peculiar reason, there is reluctance from the general British football sphere to criticise Pellegrini this season, because—as Jamie Redknapp put it on Sky Sports' coverage—he’s a “nice guy.”

But why should the Chilean be exempt from scrutiny? After all, his tactics and stubbornness in deviating from a somewhat rigid and restricting 4-4-2 formation is limiting what his undoubtedly talented team is capable of.

The shortcomings of his favoured system have been brutally exposed in the Champions League and have been shown up by several in the Premier League, too. Pellegrini must adapt or die, and right now his side are dying.

City may have emerged from the shadow of their Manchester rivals United, but the legend of Ferguson shows just how far Pellegrini must go not just to match his success but emulate his spirit.