"April is the cruellest month" T S Eliot
Atletico-Liverpool-Atletico-Liverpool: April will tell us what City are made of
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By Sam Lee Mar 21, 2022 18
If Manchester City’s trip to Southampton in the FA Cup was an opportunity for the watching world to gauge how well Pep Guardiola’s side are playing at the moment, and how prepared they are to deal with the big push in April, then there was plenty to mull over.
A 4-1 win to progress to the semi-finals is not to be sniffed at, especially against a team that made life extremely difficult, just as they did in two Premier League games this season, but there was quite a bit not to like as well.
Guardiola said his side “forgot to play” at times, an assessment he has not made since the 2019-20 season when they finished behind Liverpool in the table, and when Kevin De Bruyne was handed the opportunity to provide a positive assessment of a job well done, he could not help but highlight the negatives.
“I think the first 20 minutes and the last half hour we did well. In between, we made too many stupid mistakes,” he said, as blunt as ever.
And now we know that City’s post-international-break run has just got harder. Their reward for overcoming their issues against Southampton is a meeting with Liverpool at Wembley, and not just that: the game comes a week after they play Jurgen Klopp’s team at the Etihad Stadium, and a few days after their second leg against Atletico Madrid.
So after their trip to Burnley in a fortnight, it’s Atletico-Liverpool-Atletico-Liverpool. As daunting a run as you are likely to find and one that goes way beyond the complexity of the matches themselves: with all four games coming within 12 days, Guardiola will have to keep his players fresh and firing, knowing when to take them out and when to put them in.
But who? And when? Which game can you afford to gamble? None of them, really, but they will have to.
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De Bruyne applauds City’s travelling faithful – he was less than impressed with the team’s display, though (Photo: Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
It makes it fascinating, especially as Liverpool will have similar headaches. Benfica may not cause them too many problems but Klopp will need to make sure they do the job while keeping an eye on the double-header against City.
Beyond those games, Liverpool welcome Manchester United and Everton to Anfield. Neither of those sides are in the best of form, but they are big matches that demand energy and focus, and they come on the back of a four-game run that may have pushed them to the limit mentally and physically.
Can City or Liverpool win all of those games? They are capable of that. But all in a row, with enough energy to handle each challenge? It makes things much, much tougher. And what of the defeats and draws? Who will be top of the league? Will they be out of Europe? Who is still on for a treble/quadruple?
That is the beauty of what we are about to witness.
So where are City at right now? Since drawing 1-1 at St Mary’s almost two months ago, they have lost to Tottenham Hotspur, played poorly against Everton but won and played well at Crystal Palace and drawn, with various other highs and lows in between.
Are they missing a striker or not? Are they tiring? Are certain players struggling for form?
The striker debate will never be settled until the trophies are counted, it’s as simple as that. If City win the league or Champions League, there will be few complaints. Even fewer if they win both. They would probably be better off with one, yeah, but they have hardly struggled without one for the past 18 months and there is a case to be made that they are better. Let that be left for another day.
They can’t be tiring, for the simple reason that their sports science programme surely would not let them. Maybe they will be in a month, but that is what they are geared towards.
Are players struggling for form? Possibly. Joao Cancelo was guilty of giving the ball away carelessly several times on Sunday, going against Guardiola’s mantra of patience. He was forcing the issue and seeing Southampton gobble up the loose ball and drive at his defensive colleagues. Do that against Liverpool and you are in trouble.
That was the kind of thing that got Cancelo taken out of Guardiola’s line-up for the Champions League semi-final second leg and the final, but the kind of thing he had cut out this season as he has taken his game to the next level.
He will have to control that in those crunch games coming up, but it would be harsh to single him out. One of those “stupid mistakes” De Bruyne talked about was how City rushed in possession before half-time, with Zack Steffen throwing the ball to Rodri, and Rodri feeding Cancelo again, in the same areas he had been caught all half.
“We should just play it out,” De Bruyne said. “There are 30 seconds to go and we made a mistake.”
They were all guilty of it for large spells, and 4-1 flattered them.
There is a lot to be said for seeing out the rough patches and the energetic Southampton attacks and winning comfortably, though. This kind of performance stretched out over four or five of those big games might not be the best idea, but a little bit of Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez’s clinical finishing could go a long way when the margins are finer.
They were left on the bench, perhaps a hint at who Guardiola will turn to in April. So too Bernardo Silva, presumably to manage their minutes. The kind of gamble that needs to be taken at this point of the season even in a knock-out game.
City will surely need his legs and creativity in midfield, given they seemed to struggle as a result of him being moved further forward against Spurs and Everton.
Maybe Ruben Dias could make a telling contribution on his return, especially with Walker still banned for the first leg against Atletico. Could Ederson play at Wembley instead of Steffen, who made some very good saves (perhaps better ones than Ederson makes) but looked far more flappable?
And what did it say that Southampton set up exactly the same way as in the two league draws and still caused City the same problems? If Atletico or Liverpool get the better of City one week, will Guardiola and his players find the answers the next?
The Southampton game was never going to provide all the answers, and it may have even provided a few more questions, but we will soon find out what City — and Liverpool, for that matter — are made of.
