Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola faces increasing scrutiny as his team struggles through an unprecedented injury crisis. The recent defeat to Aston Villa highlighted the lack of depth in the squad and the absence of key players.
Pep Guardiola was calm and composed as he took his seat to take questions after another defeat on Saturday. The Manchester City coach took more questions than he had to and sought to offer context for both the individual result against Aston Villa and wider issues that have resulted in the worst run of results in his career. There was no excuses looked for, but a defence offered of the efforts that are being made to change things.
Guardiola remains correct to say that things will improve when he gets his players back - what team wouldn't improve when some of their best stars returned - but the Villa defeat painted the worrying reality that there is no timeframe for that. As John Stones came back in and then out of the team in the space of 45 minutes, the vicious cycle City have got themselves into means that two months since their injury crisis first hit it shows no sign of ending. City will undoubtedly improve when Guardiola gets his players back, but what if he doesn't? Or what happens if it takes months rather than weeks and the Blues continue to freefall down the Premier League and out of the Champions League? Asked that very question in the Villa Park press room, the City boss said that they would play with whatever they had. After suggesting he would play youngster Jahmai Simpson-Pusey if there were no fit centre-backs, he then went on to praise Bernardo Silva and Rico Lewis for playing every minute without rest. It is the second rather than the first suggestion that has been Guardiola's preferred route so far. While Simpson-Pusey started against Sporting and Brighton towards the beginning of the losing run, he hasn't since and John Stones and Manu Akanji were both rushed straight back into the starting XI at the weekend instead. Silva has run himself into the ground and doesn't some of the flak he is picking up, yet it was striking on Saturday how little verve there was in the team after a week of
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