PL Preview: Why Are the Manchester Clubs Failing to Live Up to the Hype?

Manchester and its inhabitants are not usually prone to self-doubt—one of their favourite sons, Ian Brown of the Stone Roses, was met with scant resistance when he famously said Manchester had everything except a beach. So it seems jarring that City and United, as well as arguably their managers, could be case studies for existential angst.    

A film of the season to date in Manchester would need to be scored by Joy Division.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. When Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola pitched up in Manchester over the summer, their respective CVs negated the need to caveat expectations. It could not have been set up more perfectly. Only goal difference separated the two teams last season, while United won the FA Cup and City claimed the Capital One Cup. 

On the back of a season in which City and United had both finished some 15 points behind champions Leicester City, Manchester became the epicentre of the football universe courtesy of managerial royalty making homes for themselves in a city George Orwell once described as "the belly and guts of the nation." The latter has been conspicuous only in absence over the past month or so.

Even withstanding Mourinho's annus horribilis that prematurely brought the curtain down on his second stint as Chelsea manager last term, both managers have had a place reserved at football's top table for so long it's said that Midas is envious of their touch.

With 43 trophies between them, including four UEFA Champions League wins and 14 domestic league titles, they are as close as it gets to a guarantee of success.

Given the team's results, Manchester United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward may have at some point surreptitiously checked in the back of the drawer for the receipt, though the Telegraph's James Ducker insists that the Portuguese "retains the steadfast support and patience of Manchester United's hierarchy." 

When both clubs won each of their first three Premier League matches, it looked as though the hype would for once be justified. This was all set to be the greatest rivalry in Manchester since Mike Baldwin and Ken Barlow would swing for one another on the cobbles of Coronation Street at least once a week.

German writer J. G. Kohl could have been describing opposition managers sharing a touchline with Mourinho and Guardiola, when on his visit to Manchester in 1844 he observed: "When entering for the first time a town like Manchester, a stranger, overwhelmed by the new and interesting spectacle presented to him, scarcely dares look this giant full in the face at once [...]."

United's flying start has followed with just two wins from the next 11 games, taking 12 points in the process. It is debatable whether the nadir in this run is a 4-0 loss at Chelsea, a 3-1 defeat at Watford, or an inability to beat any of Everton, West Ham United, Stoke City or Burnley.

No team in the top flight has drawn more games than United's six, all of which have come in the last eight games.

Sat 13 points behind leaders Chelsea (no team has won the title from as many points back) and trailing fourth-place City by nine, it seems an aeon ago since Mourinho's first press conference, when he declared his Manchester United side would be able to compete for the title. If he backtracks from that comment any further, he'll be able to play Deco in his midfield on Sunday against Tottenham Hotspur.

United's win in Ukraine on Thursday against FC Zorya Luhansk on an ice rink of a pitch to book safe passage to the last 32 of the UEFA Europa League is cause for quiet optimism. Even if progression is the proverbial double-edged sword. 

The return of Eric Bailly is a real fillip, while Henrikh Mkhitaryan's superb solo goal provides further evidence to suggest he's just as good as the rest of us always thought he was. Zlatan Ibrahimovic's seventh goal in six matches to take his tally to 12 for the season should keep quiet those who chipped in for a retirement gift when he went six games without scoring in October/early November.  

False dawns have been a reoccurring motif for United all season, though. 

Since September, United are behind Stoke City, Bournemouth, Watford, West Bromwich Albion and Crystal Palace in the form guide. Decrying ill-luck when your side—the most expensively assembled in football history—is being outperformed (or at least outpointed) by one managed by a reportedly close-to-the-sack Alan Pardew is like moaning about the size of your waistline when sharing a dinner table with Jabba the Hutt.

Mourinho inherited an FA Cup-winning side that only lost out on a UEFA Champions League place due to an inferior goal difference, and was bought all four of the targets his side was strongly linked with over the summer—including Paul Pogba for a world-record fee.

Few would dispute the football has been better than last season, if perhaps only in patches, but in terms of results, Mourinho has struggled to match predecessor Louis van Gaal. Matchday revenue generated through the sale of Pro Plus is said to be down, too.

Having won their first 10 matches in all competitions, City have hit a similar slump. Since beating Bournemouth 4-0 on September 17, they have failed to win a home league game. Consecutive 1-1 draws with Everton, Southampton and Middlesbrough preceded Sunday's ill-tempered 3-1 defeat to Chelsea.

Between them, City and United have taken seven points from the 24 available from their respective last four home games in the league.

It shouldn't be taken for granted City have successfully negotiated the group stages of the UEFA Champions League, nor should the fact they have only lost two domestic league games either. Both of which—against Tottenham and Chelsea—Guardiola would argue they were unfortunate to lose. As would Sunderland when City beat them on the opening day of the season. 

As good as City are on the ball, they are as bad off it. Guardiola is a razor-sharp tactician, but surely even he hasn't consciously introduced the concept of a fake shape whenever City lose possession. At the back, they have been atrocious, with Nicolas Otamendi's display against Chelsea a particular lowlight. John Stones and Aleksandar Kolarov have not covered themselves in glory either. 

Going forward they can be illuminating, with Raheem Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne both having clearly benefitted from working with a coach well-schooled in drawing the most from some of football's finest forward lines. The player he could make from the Belgian's raw attributes has the potential to be one of the best in the world over the next couple of years. 

Guardiola was brought in by Manchester City to give them an identity—his own, and by an extension of that, Barcelona's.

In 2014, the Guardian's Spanish football correspondent Sid Lowe wrote that City's decision two years earlier to poach Barcelona's vice-president Ferran Soriano, who in turn recruited his sporting director Txiki Begiristain, was always about a wider vision than simply trying to convince Guardiola to join them, too.

"The assumption that City simply copied Barcelona's model, air-lifting it in, is facile and flawed," wrote Lowe. "So is the theory that signing Soriano and Begiristain was merely a prelude to signing Guardiola, although no doubt they would have liked to."

While it's hardly prescient to point things out after they have happened, City could not have attempted to make Guardiola more at home had they commissioned Antoni Gaudi to build the club's sweeping state-of-the-art Academy and laid on Fernando Alonso as his private driver. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The most ambitious club in the world looking to copy the most successful is no crime.

Mourinho's remit was slightly different. Manchester United wanted his winning mentality. His footballing philosophy could be tolerated, even if it sat uncomfortably with the club's holy DNA, just so long as he got the winning bit back on track.

After three years of football so insipid the club's kit partner Adidas had mooted the idea of changing the home shirt to beige, Mourinho's spiky personality was perceived as being necessary to break a cycle of complacency inherent since Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement.

His long-standing rivalry with Guardiola was pitched as the pragmatist versus the perfectionist, the fighter against the philosopher. At present, Mourinho seems caught between two stools.

For all his belligerence, he clearly craves to deliver the side United supporters want to see, with a back four encouraged to play further up the pitch than would usually be the case with a Mourinho team. Neither does he usually set his teams up to play on the front foot so much.

As was the case against Everton, though, old habits die hard. A tendency to protect a lead rather than extend it riles United fans who have been reared on the adage the best way to kill a game at 1-0 is to score another. Or just keep Marouane Fellaini on the bench. 

Mourinho insists he is restoring the club's traditions after three seasons under David Moyes and Van Gaal that would surely have failed any in-house DNA test, per the Telegraph's Peter Ferguson: "I am here to build the future, and build the future with a certain DNA, with a certain style."

The United manager added:

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We play now in between the opponents’ lines. We look forward, our defensive line is very high. Our central defenders don't follow the man, they defend zonal.

There are different styles of playing football. We try to follow our style. I have never had a team with so much ball possession.

I have never had a team with so much control of a game by having the ball. I have never had a team that creates so many chances.

"

Stirring words, though whether they justify the club's poorest start to a season for 26 years is something of a moot point. Some critics may find it difficult to get carried away about a Manchester United side that has scored five fewer league goals than Crystal Palace.

The majority of United supporters appear to back Mourinho. With Mkhitaryan having excelled since finally winning his manager's trust, and surely significantly more to come from Pogba, there are shoots of promise. 

In simpler days of yore, when seasons, as opposed to matches, were the units used to measure managers, 24 games into a debut campaign would still be the honeymoon period. Albeit at a stage where newlyweds start to realise their partner's little idiosyncrasies once regarded as cute are now just plain annoying.

It is Guardiola's tinkering that has non-believers rolling their eyes as a wife does when listening to her husband clear his throat in the night.

Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with Celtic may have been a dead rubber that allowed Guardiola to rest key players in making nine changes to the side that started against Chelsea, but it was another disjointed home performance in which his admittedly makeshift XI looked unsure of what was being asked of them. It's becoming a theme. Picking three specialist right-backs in a formation without full-backs is peak Guardiola.

He has made 46 changes to his starting XI in 14 league games, the most of any Premier League manager, with a different lineup named in each of City's 24 games in all competitions.

Antonio Conte has been widely, and rightly, praised for putting out a Chelsea side that looks drilled to within an inch of its life. It's worth pointing out the Londoners have played seven fewer matches than either of the Manchester clubs, with the Italian having enjoyed full weeks on the training ground with his players between the majority of Premier League games due to a lack of European commitments.

Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool are the same. In both instances, it is easy to see how that extra time has been spent. 

Without such a luxury, Guardiola is asking an awful lot from his players. In an interesting piece for ESPN, Michael Cox proffered his view that the problem with City is they have no default system:

"

Does a team need a default system? Judging by recent football history, yes.

Guardiola's Barcelona were fundamentally a 4-3-3, Heynckes' Bayern a 4-2-3-1, Jurgen Klopp's Borussia Dortmund a 4-2-1 and Guardiola's Bayern a 4-1-4-1.

[...]

Once you start switching from a back four to a back three, things become much trickier.

[...]

Is Guardiola tinkering too much? No. But is he tinkering too early? Quite possibly.

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Essentially, when things go pear-shaped, as they have at times for City this season, Guardiola can't bellow in his best Mike Bassett voice: "Right, lads, you're too thick to play how I'd like you to play with inverted full-backs—back to four-four-bloody-two."

While Mourinho has a rough blueprint to follow, Guardiola is expected to provide one of his own for City. In fairness, he's not going to be able to draw one up in 14 Premier League games. He first needs to work out exactly what he's got to play with. Maybe he just needs to stop trying to find out in the course of a single match.

For a club that has won the Premier League twice in the last five seasons with two different managers, it would be hard to sum up City's style of play in a single sentence, as would be infinitely possible with other clubs. They liked to dominate possession under both Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini, but City's success always seemed to be more about great players doing special things than any managerial masterstroke.

It's a rarity in the modern game given the top managers share as much of the limelight as the players. In some cases, like with Guardiola and Mourinho, even more so. 

Maybe it's time they started to justify such star billing beyond any reasonable doubt.

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