Gab & Juls Show: Can Semenyo save Man City’s title hopes?
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What recent events have impacted Manchester City's title hopes?
Presented by Modelo.
Right now on the ESPN app.
I'm Gab. He's Jules. Gray skies over West London. Guess what? Grayer still skies over Villa and Manchester City because both teams dropping points in midweek, which means it's Arsenal who kick off in a few hours against Liverpool as we record this on a Thursday morning. They could go eight points clear at the top of the Premier League. As Jose Mourinho once said, eight points, that is a lot. That is a lot. In other news, Barcelona through to the Supercopa final. Resounding win. Inter win at Parma as well. Jonathan David, see, he wasn't that bad. Funnily scored again, yeah. Yeah. But let's start at Manchester City because they were playing Brighton. They're playing Brighton at home. Obviously, the focus is going to be on the two centre-backs, Ruben Diaz and Joschka Vardal came off injured.
Vardal won't be back for some time now. Are we just going to blame Kuzanov and Little Max who just came back from Watford?
Yeah, who did really well, I thought. I think the problem is a bit deeper than who plays the centre-back and are they good enough or not good enough? Because I thought Kuzanov had the good game, to be fair. He made a couple of mistakes, always, because he's a young player. But his pace... Helped them to play higher up on the pitch. He can recover from mistakes. He had a couple of really good blocks. The problem remains. Nico Gonzalez, for example. The lack of creativity from Phil Foden, who's five games in a row now. He's been really poor. Erling Haaland can't score in open play anymore for some reason. Misses massive chances. Why is Schalke on the bench in a game like this? I don't understand. Because when he came on for the last half hour, he changed the game, but he was still not enough.
For them to win, and yeah, the injuries are a problem, but I think they have far more issues than just Diaz and Guardiola not being there.
I want to reinforce this. This was a game where Brighton had a couple of very good chances. City had, I think, their XG was well over two. City did have their chances in this game.
Yeah, in the second half, yeah.
But the whole point of being a dominant team, of putting the contrast between City and, say, Arsenal, the way they've approached the league this season, or even Liverpool last year, who are obviously more attacking than... is that you minimize the chances against you, and you don't just rely on potentially outscoring the other team because you have better players and you're at home. This whole concept, and I go back to this, of Pep Guardiola, control, control... he's just not there yeah i and i'm wondering and is this squad construction tools a little bit because again you know the situation with stones you know the situation with ake Josco Guardiola and Ruben Diaz are your only, you know, first-rate guys that you can rely on, and now they're hurt.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they will go into the transfer market in January for sure to sign a center back, at least one, maybe even more, even two defenders maybe. Overall, I think the control they still wanted, but with Pep Linders arriving, they clearly are evolving. We said that many times on the show before. The signing of Linders is in that... Makes sense for that. The arrival of Semenyo, similar. Semenyo is not there for control. There's no control about Semenyo. Semenyo is about verticality and power and being unpredictable, which is also what they're looking for. So that balance between the two is difficult to get right now.
Yeah, and on Semenyo, as we record this, reportedly he's having a medical today. We expect him to sign. He has not signed. But either way, the fact that they pursued him, as you just said, gives you an insight in what they're trying to do. One of the things that's been suggested to me, which I think makes sense, is that Semenyo comes from a team that asks us forward to just press and press and press constantly. He is one of the hardest working players, front players. When I look at... So City's front players, Erling Haaland does not press obsessively.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What recent events have impacted Manchester City's title hopes?
0:00–4:52
2
How are injuries affecting Manchester City's performance?
4:52–14:34
3
What role does Semenyo play in Manchester City's strategy?
14:34–20:42
4
How does Pep Guardiola's approach differ from other managers?
20:42–21:33
5
What are the implications of the Linders effect on Manchester City?
21:33–43:49
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from ESPN FC
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