Conan

They really looked like they were going through the gears.

People were playing well.

But the reality, Joe, is that that team was still susceptible to certain direct football.

I've said it to you before in terms of last year Guardiola saying that the footballer Iriola's playing at Bournemouth, where it's going from back to front, was going to ask questions of his centre-halves and his defenders.

They're brilliant when they're dictating play, if it's slow build-up from the opposition or they're sitting in.

But the Premier League has just gone and flipped completely to how we used to have it, where it's back to front early on.

And we saw how they were exposed against United.

But I think the lazy assumption is that it's because there was young lads in there.

They weren't their first choice centre-back pairing, their first choice defenders.

But that isn't accurate because even in that game against Sunderland, even against Forest, when they did have those players in place, they just got turned so easy from deep balls, from full-back, just long balls.

And it's something now that,

I think that Pep's looked at it now in a scenario, when he first came into the Premier League, do you remember he won 10 games on the spin?

And I'd done the game at Tottenham where they were just a young, vibrant team under Pochettino.

They blew them away athletically.

And Pep straight away just made the conclusion in my mind that Zabaleta, Kolarov can't cope with that intensity.

I think he's going to make that decision now on Vardy.

On Diaz, he's captain either.

And I don't think that Gery coming in is necessarily just to come in and fill in the injuries.

I think they've identified that they need a centre-half who can defend high and who can defend the box because these defenders at City just cannot do it.

He does look tired.