Football writer Ollie Connolly has been discussing one of the key reasons he believes Manchester City haven’t been able to get close to Premier League champions this season.
Pep Guardiola’s side are currently 18 points behind Liverpool in the table despite beating Jurgen Klopp’s side as recently as earlier this month 4-0 at the Etihad Stadium (via premierleague.com).
The Manchester-based club have suffered nine league defeats this season, six more than the champions and therefore it is no wonder the gap between the two is so big. Speaking on a recent episode of the Blood Red podcast, Connolly spoke of the abundance of talent within the City ranks but went on to explain what he believes they have been missing this time around and why the rebuild won’t be as easy as some would have you believe.
He said: “There has never been a team with a greater collection of talent than the City squad right now, but taking [Vincent] Kompany out, I know it’s a cliche, was just some of the character of the team, some of the championship DNA – you take [David] Silva out of that, you take [Sergio] Aguero out of that. Having that relentless drive every day in training – that’s what they need.”
TIF Thoughts…
Kompany left the club last summer to return to Belgium with RSC Anderlecht and in the centre-back, we believe Pep Guardiola lost a natural-born leader. During his time at the Etihad Stadium, he captained the side on many occasions and won four Premier League titles, two FA Cups and four League Cups (as per Transfermarkt.co.uk).
Do you think keeping Kompany for one more season would have made the difference?
Yes
No
Although the 34-year-old only managed 17 appearances in the English top-flight last season, you could argue that had they held on to the former Hamburg defender, the club would have been better equipped to cope with the absence of Aymeric Laporte due to a knee injury which saw him miss 26 games.
We can assume from Connolly’s comments that he was referring to Kompany’s leadership qualities rather than his ability to perform at the top level consistently nowadays but we believe he could have been a huge help to City in both ways.