Manchester City fell to a 2-0 loss to Juventus in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday night, recording this seventh loss in the last ten games in all competitions.
Pep Guardiola’s side are now winless in their last three Champions League games and the defeat saw them slide to 22nd in the table, with their spot in the knockout stages now uncertain.
After the loss in Turin on Wednesday, Fabio Capello spoke to Sky Sport in Italy about Manchester City’s poor run of form in recent weeks.
He had major criticism for Guardiola, his approach and for his failure to breathe fresh life into the side.
The Italian said, as relayed by Corriere dello Sport: “Everyone faces City now with more courage because they pass the ball around without any sense, they always play the same game.”
“Do you sometimes want to launch this [to the]striker? Do you want to try to do something different? They had players with more quality who dribbled, now they are flat. They wait to recover the ball and start a counterattack.
Speaking further about City’s one-dimensional approach, Capello said:
“City are slow in their mind and in their game, they no longer have the speed they had before. There are no players who make the difference, they don’t have the anger and physicality that put their opponents in difficulty. Before they lost the ball and won it back immediately, now it’s no longer like that.”
The former Juventus manager also urged Guardiola to use Phil Foden in midfield more often, but also stated that maybe the Manchester City players have had enough of the Spaniard.
“Maybe after all these years they can’t stand Guardiola anymore because at a certain point Pep has nothing new to give them. I repeat, Haaland hasn’t received a cross: they don’t know how to trigger it.
“They no longer have the dynamism they once had. The only one who skips the man is Doku but then he doesn’t know what to do. De Bruyne is no longer the same, Foden must be reinserted into the centre of the game. The situation is serious and honestly I wouldn’t know what advice to give Pep to get out of it.”
Those are certainly quite strong words from Capello, who is clearly pointing towards the City boss’ failure to adapt to the situation and modify his setup on the basis of the problems he is facing.
