Why the shattered stars of Man City during a crazy summer are the biggest challenge of Pep Guardiola so far, writes Ian Ladyman

The good news for Pep Guardiola And Manchester City Is that the most difficult season of the nine of the great Catalan leadership has ended. Less encouraging is that the next starts in less than three weeks.

It is to the credit of Guardiola A Premier League Definitation that was effectively over through New Year has reached its conclusion with Champions League Football insured for next season.

To win two consecutive league games after their abject performance in the Fa -Cup Final says something for a tenacity and competitive spirit that clearly continues to exist in the Etihad Stadium, at a time when so much of what was taken for granted earlier, has disappeared.

Similarly, the problems of the city are a lot and they have not disappeared. And now their participation in the inaugural World Cup Club Great is looming in the US.

For Guardiola, to illuminate the city through it, while you try to repair what has been broken and bring fresh blood to a team that desperately needs, it has been his biggest challenge since its difficult first year in English football in 2016-17.

To view the players of the city after their Wembley Defeat Crystal Palace 10 days ago was instructive. Losing teams are usually on the road as soon as they can change their comics on the last day, but not this time.

Pep Guardiola is preparing to accompany Manchester City through a crucial summer window

A number of stars from Man City came for challenges during the 2024-25 campaign

No, members of Guardiola’s team stood out and shot their souls in what can only be described as a kind of group confessional.

Kevin De Bruyne indicated that he would not go to America. Bernardo Silva accused some teammates of lack of dedication to the cause. Phil Foden spoke about the need to find physical and emotional peace.

Foden, then in conversation with England manager Thomas Tuchel, claimed that his words were misinterpreted. The truth is that he could not have been clearer. Foden, a Treble winner and the double player of the year last year, clearly indicated that he needed a summer free.

The truth is that they all do that, but they won’t get it. De Bruyne is on his way to Napoli on a free while there is doubt about the future of players such as Jack Grealish and Silva.

Agents speak privately about most of the Stadstequad that is for sale if the prize is good and it remains likely that the team that starts next season will end a month after the club world cup is anything but unrecognizable from the person who started this campaign with a simple 2-0 victory in Chelsea in August.

City looked like trailers in blue for a large part of this season, while Guardiola looked far too often as a manager who is short of ideas about repairing his broken machine.

The biggest problem in the city has been clear – they have forgotten relatively to how to score goals. They managed 72 in the competition campaign, which was still only improved by Liverpool, but was far on earlier songs that made them so irresistibly powerful.

Last season, for example, City scored 96 goals, while they were 94 and 99 in the previous two. Never before under Guardiola, City have scored less than 80 while they marked the 100 twice, in 2018 and 2020.

City looked like trailers in blue for a large part of this season, while Guardiola looked far too often as a manager who is short of ideas

City says goodbye to the long -term midfielder Kevin De Bruyne in their last league match

One only has to see how blunt and confused they have become, all the dedication disappeared. And although those who talk about Guardiola who ruin creative players such as Grealish, clearly have very short memories, it is undoubtedly the case that something is melted on the city’s printed circuit board.

Grealish, Ilkay Gundogan and Silva all look beyond help. But how does Guardiola, who has talked about a need for a smaller team, players of their status and salary? Where are they going and who can afford to pay for them?

Players such as Jeremy Doku, Savinho and Omar Marmoush are already in the city system. They are part of the next wave. But in the coming weeks, City will be further interested in Liverpool-bound Florian Wirtz and Morgan Gibbs-White from Nottingham Forest indicates and will leave Guardiola with a new look team that just has to shoot. He can also have a new keeper by the time that summer is out.

How Guardiola approaches the Club World Cup with all this in the background will be fascinating. The prize money is huge, with the winners who are expected to stand up in the £ 100 million region. But on which personal and human costs?

City will continue to recruit in the coming weeks if they look back from this season

Guardiola has already talked about inviting the women and girlfriends of the players for America and said he will take his golf clubs. The messages is clear.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine that City gives it a little less than them all as soon as they have moved past tasty opening group luminaires against opposition of Morocco and the VAE to view Juventus in game three.

Pre-season-as the IS-ZAL is of course of course lighter. Likewise, players needed to go the full course and probably to return the distance in America from a late summer vacation when the new season starts.

The fall of the city from the top has been fast and dramatic. Their return is littered with obstacles and can take longer.