PL Hangover: Will Guardiola Be Managing Manchester City in the Europa League?

If Pep Guardiola does his big shop on a Thursday night, Manchester City could have an issue. Just imagine swapping Bayern Munich for the UEFA Europa League. If nothing else, a Mancunian Trading Places sounds a lot of fun.

It is a fate that has looked plausible for a few weeks, and even more so after Marcus Rashford marked his first Manchester derby in the same way he pronounced his Premier League and European debuts: a goal, a victory and a goofy smile that betrayed tender years in a way his performance never could.

For Manchester United, victory on Sunday was not simply a backs-to-the-wall, two-fingered salute to those who have decreed the current crop a hapless insult to the shirt, the worst group of players in 30 years. It was a result that both reignited UEFA Champions League aspirations and seriously threatened to derail those of their neighbours.

When Rashford took possession with a lovely soft touch from Juan Mata’s pass, he was still 30 yards from goal. He showed enough of the ball to entice Martin Demichelis into making a challenge before whipping it away as if teasing a dog with a string of sausages. Exhausted, bewildered and slavering, Demichelis went to ground. He should have never got back up. Rashford beat Joe Hart just as easily as he opened up his body to calmly roll it past him with what looked to be seasoned, icy aplomb.

It was Thierry Henry-like, not dissimilar to his first goal against Arsenal on his Premier League debut.

In the pre-match buildup, Sky Sports’ pundits questioned Louis van Gaal’s decision to give Rashford an eighth consecutive start, with the 18-year-old having gone five games without a goal.

The sight of Demichelis' substitution after just 53 minutes, making the slow walk to the touchline looking like he might not bother with the dressing room and instead head straight for a retirement home, was all the vindication the Dutchman needed. You don’t have to be Rinus Michels to work out that putting someone fast up against someone slow might be a good idea.

In his post-match press conference, Van Gaal put a metaphorical arm around a player he managed at Bayern Munich before gently squeezing all the life out of him.

"Rashford is very quick and Demichelis looked like the years are catching up with him,” said Van Gaal somewhat ungenerously.

"He was a very good defender, he was my centre-back in Bayern, but that is the life of football."

In terms of a bad day at the office, Demichelis’ afternoon was up there with accidentally setting your boss on fire. Horribly at fault for Rashford’s winner, the Argentinian missed a free header to equalize and somehow survived the most blatant of penalty appeals when he brought down his tormentor-in-chief in the area just before half-time.

His mock incredulity at a dive that never was convinced referee Michael Oliver of his innocence. It recalled an old quote from the playwright David Mamet: "Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance."

Not always, David.

Arguably, Demichelis’ nadir had still to arrive. His short backpass after the interval was at least partially to blame for a calf injury suffered by Hart, who had to hurriedly rush his clearance up field. Hart will miss England’s friendlies over the Easter period and could be out for a month. Zlatan Ibrahimovic versus Willy Caballero doesn’t bear thinking about.

Pellegrini’s ill mood, which saw him abruptly end a Sky Sports interview immediately after the game, was exacerbated by Raheem Sterling’s groin injury, which forced him off in the first half. He could be sidelined for a similar period to Hart.

"Muscle injuries are never less than a month," the Chilean lamented, per Sky Sports.

The 171st edition of the Manchester derby being decided by a kid from Wythenshawe is unlikely to be enough to keep Van Gaal in a job long term. What it should do, though, is remind the club’s board of the foundations Manchester United are built on. Kids, not cash. And if it is Jose Mourinho who takes the Old Trafford reins over the summer, let’s just hope he is gentle with Rashford, Anthony Martial, Jesse Lingard et al. Stockpiling young talent is one of football’s greatest ills at present.

Amid the filthiest of lucre, that the only Mancunian on the pitch added a little romance to proceedings is something to cling onto.

With Martial, it was admittedly more a case of cash for kids, but if he’s managed in the right way, United have a player to build a side around. At just 20, he already has that rare gift of always being involved.

For a forward, his stat of 55 touches on Sunday, per WhoScored.com, is some going. He has a boxer’s physique and never shirks a challenge. According to Opta, he competed in 31 duels. That’s nine more than any other player on the pitch. Roy Keane would be proud of those figures.

He’ll end up as centre-forward, of that there is no doubt. But for the minute, when cutting inside from the left onto his right foot, he is a graceful menace. 

At full time, City’s stadium DJ issued a defiant call to arms by blaring “Roll With It” over the PA system. Oasis released it as a single two years before Rashford was born. Demichelis won't be the only person waking up on Monday morning feeling old. He will almost certainly look back in anger.

Most of City’s players ambled off the pitch looking more puzzled that dejected. It was as though they found their acute ordinariness unfathomable. As if somehow they had been transported into Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Double. Those wearing blue may have looked identical to the names on the teamsheet, but they must have been doppelgangers to put in a performance the polar opposite of what they would have done themselves. We’re not really here, indeed.

The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted that, at various intervals throughout the first half, the hoardings around the perimeter of the pitch relayed on a loop various interesting facts and stats about the home side.

Here are a few they missed: Manchester City have taken three points from nine matches against the top six (Arsenal have won 14 points from nine matches, Tottenham Hotspur 12 from nine, Leicester City 12 from eight, Manchester United 12 from seven and West Ham United 11 from seven); last recorded back-to-back victories 22 games ago; failed to score in four of their last five games; taken 36 points from the 25 matches since winning the first five games of the season; and would be in ninth place in a Premier League table made up of results that omit those of the opening month.

Since September 13, Chelsea have won more points than City. Guus Hiddink’s men are 10 points closer to the relegation zone than they are to the summit. In short, City are in a bigger funk than George Clinton on antidepressants.

That’s not to suggest United's claiming of the bragging rights represents some kind of seismic shift. It clearly does not. Even a Red bitterer than a pint of Boddingtons would struggle to dispute City’s board, infrastructure, spending power, squad and impending managerial change makes their long-term aspirations enviable in comparison to United’s.

Yet City again looked dead behind the eyes for much of a contest from which they will point to 26 shots on goal as proof of their superiority. That only three of them were on target is the more telling statistic. United had four.

City will rightly feel aggrieved Chris Smalling stayed on the pitch for the full 90 minutes. Oliver declined to send off the same player he did in the corresponding fixture last season despite the fact a tackle from behind on Sergio Aguero after half-time clearly merited a second booking. Officiating aside, this was a largely flat City performance.

"

Man of the match Chris Smalling
43 touches
3 tackles
5 clearances
3 interceptions
10.0 km covered
43 sprints pic.twitter.com/OFfzt8t39b

— Sky Sports Statto (@SkySportsStatto) March 20, 2016"

In the opening sparring, up until Rashford silenced the majority inside the Etihad Stadium on 15 minutes, City had started by far the brighter of the two sides. It would prove a false dawn.

Unfortunately for Pellegrini, the game’s first two real opportunities fell to the most appropriately named player in world football. According to Opta, Manchester City supporters have shouted "Jesus, Navas" in the direction of their Spanish winger 3,921 times this season. He is to goalscoring what Donald Trump is to enlightened politics. The American is another with a strangely apt surname. Sterling can’t give his without wincing 49 million times.

There is nothing wrong with Navas’ endeavour; it’s just the aptitude that needs work. Manchester City have scored 177 goals since he last troubled the scoresheet. Still, it was a lovely finish against Cardiff City from Mike Summerbee’s delivery. If hitting the first man with a cross were a skill widely admired, he’d be a shoo-in for the Ballon d’Or.

In truth, Navas is a soft target when there are so many other bigger names playing way below par with alarming regularity. David Silva is the type of player who has to tell the match ball he’ll sign him at full time so the rest of the players can get on with the game, but on Sunday he once again failed to set the heart aflutter despite improving in the second half.

At times, he looks like a great veteran actor on autopilot in a movie he’ll never bother watching in its entirety. He’s not hit Robert De Niro levels of going through the motions just yet, but if he fails to meet Guardiola over the summer because he’s on location shooting with the Fockers, it’ll be time to worry.

Aguero came closest to finding a leveller when he clipped the outside of David De Gea’s near post with a glancing header in the second half. He boasted seven goals from as many derby appearances going into the game but cut a frustrated figure for much of the afternoon. At times, it looked as though he’d lost faith in his team-mates, preferring to go it alone. Could you ever be accused of being greedy when the alternative is passing to Wilfried Bony?

Guardiola would have watched Sunday’s game from behind a cushion. For all the accusations he has taken another easy job, rejuvenating a City squad that is the second-oldest in the Premier League, behind West Bromwich Albion, may not be as straightforward as many predict.

Of City’s four centre-halves, Vincent Kompany is the only one good enough to play for a top-level team. Given he’s spent more time in the treatment room than on the pitch this season, though, he’s hardly a banker. There have always been questions marks over the full-back positions too.

Fernandinho is a keeper in the holding role, but Fernando could shuffle out of the exit door without anyone noticing. On Sunday, he lost a footrace with Michael Carrick, in a re-enactment of the Aesop Fable, The Tortoise and the Tortoise.

Navas and Bony are unlikely to find Guardiola as accommodating as their current boss, either.

Guardiola and Toure have history, and it’s unlikely the best coach in the world, with an open chequebook, will consider a player who is either sublime or ridiculous—rarely anything in between—as being worth the hassle. The only thing Toure is interested in pressing these days is his sandwich together at full time.

If anyone can get Aguero, Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne working in perfect harmony, though, it will be Guardiola. If they hit it off next season after a largely fitful first campaign together, Europe will have few better front lines.

For all his protestations to the contrary, Pellegrini appears to have thrown all his eggs into a Champions League-shaped basket. Could anyone blame him? The Chilean is only human, and with one foot out of the door, he is chasing glory abroad while leaving the back door open at home.

Meanwhile, back in Bavaria, Guardiola is weeping into his stein at the prospect of Thursday away days in Hungary.

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