Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said teams are prepared to deal with his team in a way they have never done before, which will cost City a place in the Champions League if they cannot find a solution.
Guardiola did not completely say that City, who will face Chelsea at home on Saturday, had completely lost the “fear factor.”
However, while assessing the hot season, he focused on the change in approach which suggests that opponents are no longer as fearful as they once were, with teams putting more pressure on his team.
“Everyone came to the union and stayed behind,” he said. “The first team I saw marking a man was Neil Warnock at Cardiff. Now everyone is doing it. Everyone comes here, it doesn't matter, man to man.
“They just jump to Ederson or Stefan [Ortega]. “You have to adapt and handle the ball better, otherwise you won't qualify for the Champions League.”
City currently ranks fifth in the English Premier League, 12 points behind leaders Liverpool. Towards the end of 2024, they have won just one of their 13 matches, and now find themselves having to beat Club Brugge on Wednesday just to claim a Champions League play-off place following this week's defeat to Paris Saint-Germain.
Although City have £123m worth of new talent available to face Chelsea in the Premier League, Guardiola does not believe that alone will solve their problems.
He rejected those who focus on statistics as evidence of whether a team is performing to the maximum or not, instead suggesting that his team did not use the ball well enough.
He said: “Speed is important, but against Paris Saint-Germain we ran more than them.” “Our problem is with the ball. This is what we lacked this season.
“If you have the ball and you don't pass it correctly to your teammate, everything will be very difficult.”
When City won 2-0 at Stamford Bridge on the opening weekend of the season, few would have predicted that by the time of the second leg Chelsea would be higher up the table and Guardiola's side would be just a point ahead of Bournemouth.
Guardiola believes qualifying for next season's Champions League will be like winning the title, given the injuries that have cost him the services of Ballon d'Or winner Rodri and left him with only one decent centre-back this weekend, barring new additions Vitor Reis and Abdulkader Khosanov.
He also said there was merit in Jose Mourinho's famous claim that finishing second behind City with Manchester United in the 2017-18 season was one of the greatest achievements of his career.
“There are seasons when there are a lot of difficulties,” Guardiola said. “How do you stand? How can you stay there?”
“I remember Jose. I don't really know United but he said several times that finishing second that season was his biggest success. I completely understand that.”
