The Premier League Panel: Is this the end for Manchester City's dominance, or just another blip?

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Why has it all gone so wrong for Manchester City - and how can Pep Guardiola and his players turn things around? Our expert panel investigates.  #sport #football #thepremierleaguepanel #premierleague #matthewgregory #michaelplant #markcarruthers #markwilson

Transcript

00:00Hello, I'm Matthew Gregory, and welcome to the Premier League panel. This week, we're

00:08going to try and figure out why it's all going wrong for Manchester City, as we look at the

00:12sudden decline and potential fall of Pep Guardiola's empire. To help me work out why things have

00:17gone south for the champions, I'm joined, as always, by an expert panel. Manchester

00:22Wells, Manchester City correspondent Michael Plant is here, as is freelance football reporter

00:27Mark Carruthers. Michael, I'll come to you first. The 2-0 defeat to Liverpool at the

00:31weekend wasn't just a pretty crushing blow for City's chances of getting back in the

00:35title race, but also just about as badly as I can remember them playing in such a big

00:40game. Why were they so far off the pace that Liverpool set this time out?

00:44Oh, I mean, I think you could probably write a book on it, the reasons that we've got here.

00:51I mean, obviously, I think the biggest factor is Rodri and injuries in general. I think

00:56that Rodri, in particular, was such an important player. He carried out four or five roles

01:01in the team and trying to find an exact replacement for him has proved impossible. And that's

01:05not even a problem, really. This season, I mean, City have been over-reliant on him for

01:09a couple of years now. Calvin Phillips was supposed to be the backup. That didn't work.

01:12And, you know, when he dropped out of the team last season, obviously, they lost so

01:16many games. Injuries have taken their toll elsewhere. I think confidence has obviously

01:20taken a knock. I think there's a feeling that perhaps maybe they've played so many games

01:25over the last couple of years. Fatigue has caught up with them as well. Confidence, I

01:30say, has dropped. Tactically, I maybe think that there's a few things that Guardiola could

01:34rejig. We've just got all these reasons that have come together at the one point of time.

01:41They made Fidelizoff. They were too reliant on Erling Haaland for goals and making too

01:44many defensive errors. But suddenly, we're looking at a Man City team who, a couple of

01:49weeks ago, you would have said, never, ever lose. And now they can't buy a win at the

01:54moment. So it's been an incredible downturn for them over just a couple of weeks, really,

01:58and a remarkable change that I didn't foresee, and I don't think many people did.

02:02I mean, where do you look at this, Bob? When you're looking at the root causes, I mean,

02:07as Michael says, there's quite a few you can point at. What are the first things that come

02:11to mind? What are the big issues for you? The core reasons why it's all gone so far

02:15south?

02:16I think it's just something of an imperfect storm, isn't it? It's not necessarily... You

02:21could point to stuff, as Michael said, like Rodri being missing. I also think there's

02:25just a number of players maybe coming towards that natural end of their time at Manchester

02:30City. There's some players that have been there for a long time now, and maybe they

02:33need new challenges. Every great side that we've seen in the Premier League, Michael

02:38will know more than anyone. At Manchester United, the Ferguson side, it was regenerated

02:42every few years, where I feel as if the City side have been, yes, players have come in,

02:47the Docos and Haalands in previous seasons. But I just think maybe this is a time when

02:53there's a bit of a bigger refresh needed. We saw Edison dropped out the side on Sunday.

02:59Is it time to move him on and look for a new goalkeeper? I just wonder if it is time for

03:03Guardiola really to try and refresh this squad.

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