Pep Guardiola X Human Error

Mulan

Some people think that just because data showed that Pep should have won the league in 2019-2020 then it means that something is wrong with the data. Yes, the data is still prone to error but by taking a deeper look at it, we find out where the problem is: Pep Guardiola's Manchester City had the highest number of missed scoring opportunities in history.

But, is missed scoring opportunities Pep's only problem?

Manchester City's Defense Under Pep

If we say that Alisson is more talented than Ederson, and Liverpool's attack is more talented than City's, is City's defense worse as well?

Anyone who took deeper looks at Pep's career they'd find the opposite. In Guardiola's second season with Barcelona, he set a club record in the number of clean sheets. In Pep's third reason with Barcelona, he broke the record of clean sheets he set before.

At Bayern Munich, the same thing happened. Also, in Manchester City. Pep's second season with City saw him break a record in clean sheets that he, once again, broke the season after.

What's The Problem Then?

There were problems I noticed when going through Manchester City's defensive record in Pep's second and third season with them:

  • The 2017-2018 season saw Manchester City concede 27 goals

  • They conceded 6 goals within 27 minutes

10 of those minutes were in Anfield against Liverpool and 17 minutes against Old Trafford in Manchester United.

  • The 2018-2019 season, Manchester City conceded 22 goals in total

  • Half of those goals were scored in December alone

With that, you realize a very bad habit at Manchester City, once they concede a goal, they usually concede a second within a short amount of time. That second goal is usually scored within 10-15 minutes.

That problem isn't gone, by the way. You just need to check the last 10 matches or so City had in the 2021-2022 season.

In the 2019-2020, that conceding issue occurred against 5 teams, Wolves, Norwich, Tottenham, Liverpool, and Manchester United.

What To Do With All Those Numbers?

Well, Ottamendi, Stones, and Mendy are among the names who were in defense during that time period. However, they're not the problem.

The main problem behind City's problems is psychological. The real difference between Manchester City and Liverpool, in the 2019-2020 season at least, wasn't tactical or skill-based, but it was simply the players' response to difficult situations.

That's the only thing that explains why Manchester City's data analytics showed them in a much better place than they eventually reached. Not only that, they were 18 points behind Liverpool.

Everything Is Clear Now

Liverpool managed to leave every match they were behind with 1.8 points on average. While Manchester City had 0.83, almost half Liverpool's. And just like everything leaning toward Manchester City in terms of expected goals and created chances, there's a great contradiction between City and Liverpool when they were behind in the result.

In the 2019-2020 season, Liverpool was the second-best team when it comes to the number of points they leave with after falling behind during the match with 19 points in total. Manchester City came 11th with 10 points.

That's why there was a point where Manchester won 13 games out of 13 when they scored first, scoring 42 goals and conceding 3 goals only. Also, in the last 13 games where City conceded first, they won three and lost 8.

If we remember that Manchester City's chances of creation don't fall behind when they concede but actually increase, then it is easy to reach this conclusion. Manchester concedes goals they shouldn't concede and not score chances they should score.

This simply means that the problem is with the team's character.

Is That The Players' Fault Or Pep's

It could have been the players' fault if it was just something that happened for a certain period of time, but it is a constant at City. Between the 2016-17 season and the 2019-2020 season, City's big chances misses went from 48 to 63 to 71 to 83. Manchester City came second in big chances missed during Pep's first season and have been first ever since.

At a certain point in the 2019-2020 season, Manchester wasted had a 44% success rate when it comes to penalties while Liverpool had 38% of shots converted into, just shots.

In Conclusion

It's not an odd phenomenon to have City miss opportunities and concede goals in succession. Yes, it might have been reduced. But, we still saw that against Liverpool in the FA Cup, West Ham, and Aston Villa in the league, even though they won that last one. But, most importantly, we saw it against Real Madrid.

Based on that, I could say with 90% certainty that Pep Guardiola will never win the Champions League again. More on that in my next post.



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10 comments
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Hopefully, it changes this coming season with Halland on the field they would get in more goals. I have to say I commend your analysis of Manchester City.

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Haaland is a 50-50. If he scores even half the big scoring chances City usually gets, we could see Man City grabbing titles. However, he could just be another spineless cog in Pep's wheel.

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It's the last paragraph for me. Pep's teams always seem to have soft characters and easily crumble under adversity. Maybe it's cos Pep usually undo himself with his perfectionist attitude, or perhaps because he just doesn't know how to motivate his players when it matters.

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The follow-up posts I wrote after this coincide with what you just said.

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The boss himself,howdy? It's been a while.
I can feel the heat of the efforts put into writing this post. Very notable indices you have brought to the fore– the types that are not seen often,yet are so crucial.

Please there are some typos you need to clean up.

Indeed City have had this soft under-belly about them as your brilliant analysis has revealed. However,it's clear to me that they are miles away from where they were mentally years back, there's a lot more steel now and in Haaland,they have a mentality monster.

They are poised to do even better.

Cheers boss

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Manchester city plays more of attacking football which sometimes exposes the defense, i think the reason why Manchester city concede easily after the first goal is because the wanted to equalize or maintain their winning which can make them flop at the defense. You can’t eat your cake and have it

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It seems that City suffers the most from that among the top teams. They're 11th in the league in terms of making a comeback.

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Hmmm! How I wish that was the real table 😁

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