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As you can probably expect, social media has reacted in force to Manchester City’s “shock” defeat to Al Hilal at the Fifa Club World Cup. But just how much of a “shock” should this be?
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When you take into account the scorelines up until this point, you may have been tricked into thinking Pep Guardiola’s side were back to their blistering best. But the level of opposition has been poor, and even with Juventus, the Italians were already through to the knockouts, fielded a much-changed side, and are undergoing serious work under Igor Tudor to return to their best.
Then you look at Al Hilal; a team hungry to prove to the world that Saudi Arabian football can compete with Europe’s elite, stacked with stars such as Bono, Joao Cancelo, Kalidou Koulibaly, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, and so on, and a team able to play on the transition – the ultimate downfall of Guardiola’s squad on so many occasions last season.
The long and short of the story should be that City fans should not be overly concerned by the early exit from the tournament, and despite the words coming out of the camp with regards to how seriously the competition was being taken, Guardiola’s team selections and in-game rotation perhaps tells a different story.
The feeling off the back of last season’s disastrous campaign was that rest was needed this summer, and with the new Premier League schedule kicking off on 16 August, you would rather City exited the US now rather than going all the way to the final and still failing to emerge triumphant.
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But the next six weeks present a further chance for a serious assessment of this City squad, with fans crying out for further alterations particularly in the way of exits.
The feeling is that Guardiola may have to take emotion out of decisions after the performances of some of his most-trusted stars this summer.
Perhaps the exit to Al Hilal in the last-16 will give decision makers the perfect wake-up call to not rest on the work already completed, and continue with the “aggression” in the market that chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak insisted upon.
Find more from Freddie Pye at City Xtra
[BBC]
