The biggest questions facing Guardiola at Manchester City

Being the richest football club in the world is far from being the best or most talented team, a platitude to which Manchester City can attest.  Their inconsistency year over year is a consequence of their erratic spending sprees and the challenge on integration the fruits of their off-season deals, as well as keeping richly-paid mid-career stars motivated.

Now they’ve brought in another richly-paid star in the form of new coach Pep Guardiola to connect the dots and make Manchester City a European powerhouse.

His expertise promises a coherent transfer strategy, a tactical overhaul and most importantly, a fluid, possession-based identity.

This is undoubtedly the largest renovation job he has faced and it will test his personal transfer market savvy with a team that might not even be in the Champions League next year.  His persona – and City’s deep pockets – will give the club a considerable edge in the transfer market.

According to The Guardian, he is targeting four major summer signings: Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos, Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba, Thiago Alcantara, whom he enticed from Barcelona to Bayern, and Everton’s John Stones and Athletic Bilbao’s Aymeric Laporte.

This season has handily underlined City’s existing flaws.  Vincent Kompany, David Silva, Sergio Aguero, Kevin de Bruyne, Joe Hart and Raheem Sterling are basically indispensable members of their squad, but outside of that exclusive group, few are safe in their jobs at the Etihad.

Guardiola’s first task must be to replace an aging core of City players, Bacary Sagna, Aleksandar Kolarov, and Martin Demichelis, who have been their crutch for far too long.  He will also want to bring in depth for Aguero up front and the midfielders that can bring his possession-based ideals to fruition.

Defensive Woes

There has been much speculation about how Guardiola will tackle Manchester City’s recent defensive woes.  In the top half of the table, only West Ham United, Stoke City, Liverpool and Chelsea have allowed more goals than the Sky Blues this season, a far cry from what was once one of the most sturdy defense in the league.

Kompany appears imperative to City’s successes when he his healthy, but injuries have plagued him for some time, and Guardiola will undoubtedly have to look beyond the Belgian in the long-term.  The leadership qualities that Kompany has will keep him around for the majority of Guardiola’s three-year contract at City, at very least, but the Spanish manager’s more pressing concern is to fill out the gaping holes behind Kompany.

Demichelis and Eliaquim Mangala have been disastrous at the back this season and although the latter cost City £42 million in 2014, his future is in doubt and Guardiola will have to start his rebuilding from the back. This was not so much a problem at Bayern and Barca, where Guardiola could always count on having world class replacements lining up at his doorstep. Guardiola will have to keep in the back of his mind, though, the necessity for more physical defenders in the Premier League.

Yaya Toure

Yaya Toure’s future is up for grabs given his fading form and at thirty-two-years of age, he appears unlikely to stay at the Etihad. There is no apparent bad blood between the two after Guardiola let go of Toure at Barcelona, but the Ivorian midfielder has been patchy at best this season and it appears his age is catching up with him.  For the sake of changing the guard, however, Toure appears to be the first and undoubtedly most coveted of the old guard on the chopping block.

In the end, Guardiola was brought in to make exactly these kind of changes to move the club forward.

Photo credit: By Thomas Rodenbücher (duke-0525) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons