The Catalan knows some of his defenders need time to adapt - or are simply not good enough - but he is still asking them to play a way that is alien to them

COMMENT

Pep Guardiola said on Friday that he wanted to “feel something” when he watches his Manchester City team playing. On Saturday night, that emotion will have been embarrassment.

There were always going to be bumps in the road as Guardiola tries to get City playing his way but few expected them to put in one of the worst performances of the last five or six years, as they did at Leicester City, along the way.

City were 2-0 down within five minutes at the King Power Stadium as their defence was pulled apart. By the 20-minute mark it was 3-0 and the backlash against Guardiola, his signings and his entire approach to football was already in full swing.

Those rushing to write the Catalan off as a fraud should probably make the most of tonight because there won’t be many more opportunities like this, but it is fair to say the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach has some questions to answer and issues to address before he can start to think about turning City into a dominant force.

For example, why did City go into the season with this defence?

City’s attackers were poor, and it was clear that they missed Sergio Aguero’s menacing presence up front and Fernandinho’s calming influence in the middle, but it was a shambolic start at the back which sowed the seeds of this humbling.

So to the defence. Guardiola wanted two centre-backs in the summer and, according to his biographer Marti Perarnau, told the City board that the full-back area needed an overhaul. They ended up with one new centre-back and no full-backs.

The press who covered Bayern Munich during Guardiola’s time there will tell you that when he shuts down questions it is not because he disagrees with what is being asked, but because he can’t be seen to agree.

He has come a long way since he ushered Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto’o and Deco towards the exit door during his very first press conference as Barca coach – now he would probably say he respects their careers or that they have trained fantastically.

In recent weeks he has used similarly diplomatic tactics when discussing his defence, either as a unit or as individuals.

His usual answer when he doesn’t want to talk about something is “we will improve”; after the Burnley match, when asked about a lack of clean sheets, it was “maybe we are going to change”. There does not seem much chance of that.

He has denied, too, that he wanted new full-backs in the summer, and insists he “trusts a lot” in the options at his disposal – all of which are over the age of 30, something which was said to alarm him in the summer.

Guardiola has acknowledged that some of his full-backs need more time to adjust to his demands but the charge he must face is why he is asking so much of them in the first place.

The options are these: he does genuinely believe they are good enough, or he knows they are not and has decided to power through and hope for the best, most likely that his coaching will bring them on as players.

Either way he appears mistaken. He has either overestimated some of his players or his own ability.

City had been unlucky when first started using a back three in that they contrived to draw 1-1 at home despite dominating against Everton and Middlesbrough, and to a lesser extent Southampton. But the system has only looked more susceptible the more it has been used.

Whether it is a three throughout or switches between a three and a four, the players do not seem to be getting it.

It is curious, too, that Guardiola has tried such a tactic so soon at City when he didn’t introduce it until his second season at Bayern and did not rely upon it until his third. Perhaps he himself has mastered how it should work in theory and in practice, but his players have not.

Guardiola was always going to ask his team to keep the ball in the opposition half, bossing possession and attacking relentlessly, in the process offering the opposition few chances. That has worked at his previous clubs not just because he has had technically gifted attackers, but because his defenders have been strong individually.

He does not have a Gerard Pique, a Carles Puyol, a Jerome Boateng, a Javi Martinez, a David Alaba; somebody who is consistently strong in one-on-one situations, who can get his team-mates out of a scrape.

John Stones, who was guilty of a poor backpass for the fourth goal, may yet become Pique-esque but that will require time. At least he has that on his side: Pablo Zabaleta, Gael Clichy, Bacary Sagna and Aleksandar Kolarov do not.

All but Kolarov are out of contract in the summer and none are likely to be offered new deals. Nicolas Otamendi, who missed the Leicester game through suspension, is on borrowed time, too.

But before new faces can be brought in, Guardiola must work out what he is going to do with the players he has got.

City will surely not play this poorly again, but that should not be regarded as much of an achievement. The real challenge is getting a competent performance out of a defence that simply cannot do what it is being asked. That is something on Guardiola to fix.