Pep Guardiola may have made Sir Alex Ferguson Man Utd mistake that could cost Man City
Gary Neville suggests that Manchester City’s manager, Pep Guardiola, could be repeating the same mistake as Sir Alex Ferguson, the legendary Manchester United manager, by not acknowledging his mistakes in the present.
Neville believes that Manchester City currently lacks a definite starting left-back after Joao Cancelo’s departure, and this is an issue that needs to be resolved.
Sir Alex Ferguson is widely regarded as the greatest football manager of all time due to his remarkable success during his 27-year tenure as Manchester United boss.
He won an incredible 49 trophies, which remains unmatched in terms of both success and longevity. However, despite his achievements, he was not infallible and did make mistakes during his career.
Currently, Pep Guardiola is considered by many to be the best manager in the world.
However, Gary Neville, a former Manchester United player, believes that Guardiola may be making the same mistakes as Ferguson. Neville suggests that Ferguson was often reluctant to admit his errors, and Guardiola is repeating this by persisting with Bernardo Silva as a left-back despite the team’s lack of a clear first-choice player in that position.
“You can almost get away with a centre-back or a midfielder playing at right-back – for some reason, you can very rarely get away with that at left-back,” Neville told the Overlap in focus, in partnership with Sky Bet. “I feel that Manchester City never tied that position down.
“We’re all worried about questioning Pep Guardiola – looking back now, Sir Alex Ferguson accepted a lot of his mistakes, but only after he retired. He said selling Jaap Stam was a big mistake and cost us for two years. I think we are living in Pep’s ‘mistake’ here, where Manchester City haven’t got a left back and they’re playing Bernardo Silva there in the odd game. That is a mistake that he has obviously contributed towards.
“I feel a bit embarrassed criticising Jürgen Klopp or Pep Guardiola, but even Sir Alex, who won 13 titles and got 99.9% of his decision-making right – he came out after he retired and spoke about the Barcelona final at Wembley in the Champions League (in 2011) and other moments where he knows he got it wrong.
“We should be quite confident in saying that what we’re watching at the moment is a team that is lacking balance on the left-hand side, and that’s why they’re not getting to their standards.
“They’re playing Nathan Aké there, he struggles on the ball at times. Bernardo Silva has played there as well, but he’s a massive vulnerability. The goal they conceded against Nottingham Forest was because of having Bernardo Silva in that position.”
Now that Joao Cancelo has joined Bayern Munich for the remainder of the season, Manchester City’s options at left-back are quite limited. Although Aymeric Laporte, Rico Lewis, and Sergio Gomez are all capable of playing in that position, they don’t seem to be favored by Guardiola.
It’s unclear who Guardiola will ultimately choose as his long-term left-back, but this situation is likely to test his managerial skills significantly.
Pep Guardiola may have made Sir Alex Ferguson Man Utd mistake that could cost Man City
