Familiar, Worrying Start Leaves Manchester City with Many Problems to Solve

The temptation is always to see patterns. It’s how we try to impose some order on the chaos of the world.

The temptation is to imagine the reason Manchester City failed to win their opening home group game in the UEFA Champions League this season must be the same reason they failed to win their opening home Champions League game in each of the previous four seasons, but Manuel Pellegrini claimed this latest defeat had little to do with those past disappointments.

“I don’t think we need to learn from other years,” he insisted in his post-game press conference following the 2-1 defeat to Juventus, relayed by the Guardian. “The last two seasons we started losing the first game and qualified for the next stage. We are just starting.”

The logic requires some teasing out, but it is there. City can draw comfort from the fact they lost their opening games in the last two years and still went through, but those previous failures contain no lessons for now because the circumstances are different.

Perhaps that is wishful thinking or a useful camouflage: It is far easier to dismiss this as a freakish one-off than acknowledge there may be systemic failings—the same, of course, could be said of the Premier League as a whole as it continues to fail to turn economic power into success in Europe.

But to an extent, Pellegrini had a point. This, after all, was a classic Italian smash and grab. According to stats from WhoScored.com, City had 55 per cent of the possession, 13 shots to 10 and five shots on target to three. But for three excellent saves from Gianluigi Buffon—one in the first half and two in the second—City would have won with relative ease.

When Vincent Kompany, as he did in the win over Chelsea, took matters into his own hands, rumbled forward for a corner and—illegally—forced Giorgio Chiellini into scoring an own goal, it seemed City had at last got the sort of break that has tended to elude them in Europe. At that point, City looked comfortable, even if they had begun the second half shakily.

All they had to do was keep the game tight for half an hour—and Juve, at that point, had offered only the vaguest goalscoring threat.

Jon Super/Associated Press

But then Buffon made his superb double save from Raheem Sterling and David Silva, Mario Mandzukic touched in Paul Pogba’s brilliant cross, Alvaro Morata curled in a superb finish and City, somehow, had lost.

“I think it was a strange game,” said Pellegrini, reported by UEFA's website. “I don’t think we deserved to lose. We played better than Juventus. We had three clear opportunities to score. Buffon made some very good saves and I think we were very unlucky especially for the first goal. We controlled the game.”

That final assertion, perhaps, was an exaggeration. The first half was scratchy, lacking much in the way of dynamism, although it was unclear to what extent that was a result of City, perhaps mindful of how open they’ve been in certain previous seasons, adopting a more cautious approach and to what extent they were frustrated by a Juventus side that defended deep and used the pace of Juan Cuadrado on the right to link the seven deep-lying players with the two central forwards.

There were specific issues of personnel, none of them a great surprise. Yaya Toure, who had shown signs of returning to his old form, was overshadowed by Pogba, who was generally more energetic, broke up play better and created the equaliser. It is he who always seems most to exemplify the sense of drift that characterises City at their worst, that indefinable sense they lack a certain edge or alertness and so suddenly find the fates and the opposition have conspired against them.

OLI SCARFF/Getty Images

Sterling missed two one-on-ones, something that is becoming a regular theme this season, confirming the impression left at Liverpool that he is not a great finisher. Samir Nasri was anonymous in Europe—again. Wilfried Bony looked clumsy—again. Kompany’s calf gave way—again. Aleksandar Kolarov, so adept going forward, made a key defensive error—again. These can’t be surprises any more, but then, realistically, what are the solutions?

Toure is 32; it’s unrealistic to expect him to have the energy and drive of the 22-year-old Pogba. He is a player in transition, either to being a more conservative, holding-type player or to being obsolete. Perhaps against mid-table Premier League sides he can still surge forward with the grace and power of old but not against the elite, or at least not consistently.

City must be planning for a future either without him or with him in a reduced role—and it would be no great surprise if his replacement turned out to be Pogba.

Sterling is only 20, and his other qualities far outweigh his finishing. At this stage, it’s probably better to appreciate the pace and movement that creates the chances than be too down on him for missing them. Finishing may come: There are plenty of players who only become clinical in their early 20s—Thierry Henry, for instance, never got into double figures for a season until the season in which he turned 22.

Nasri may end up being phased out if Kevin De Bruyne settles. Kompany, when fit and as sharp as he has been this season, remains one of the best centre-backs in the world.

Given City have spent more than £60 million on Eliaquim Mangala and Nicolas Otamendi over the past two seasons, they can reasonably expect them not to separate quite as alarmingly as they did as the ball broke off Kolarov to Morata. Then again, Morata’s finish was sensational—as was the Pogba pass to Mandzukic for the opener.

"

.@AlvaroMorata: MotM vs Manchester City, Rating 8.43, Goals 1, Shots 3, Key Passes 2, Tackles 4 @juventusfc pic.twitter.com/5Tr3WczFQv

— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) September 15, 2015"

City are entitled to think they’ve been a little unlucky at the ruthlessness with which the slightest mistake they make in Europe is punished and the regularity with which opponents do something brilliant against them.

But they can’t keep making excuses. They can’t just wait for their luck to turn. With Sergio Aguero back to fitness so he can start, they will look sharper. They might not have conceded the winner had Kompany still been on the pitch. Toure may yet have a couple of great performances left.

But the wider problem is a general sense of enervation, a tentativeness that may be born of anxiety or complacency or some hideous combination of the two that leaves them forever reliant on the same icons.

If the familiar spine isn’t firing, City aren’t. And for a club with their resources, that has spent as much as they have, that is deeply troubling. If there is a pattern, it is that.