City boss Guardiola looks ‘massively rattled’ – Collymore

Joe Williams

Stan Collymore has questioned the attitude and man-management skills of Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola after their latest defeat.

The Citizens lost 3-1 at home to Premier League leaders Chelsea on Saturday and are now sat in third place and four points adrift of the summit.

And Collymore thinks Guardiola’s lack of a “Plan B” could hurt City’s chances of winning the Premier League title.

“I’ve long questioned whether Pep Guardiola has a Plan B or not. Now I’m starting to wonder how good a man-manager he is as well,” Collymore wrote in his Daily Mirror column.

“Because even though the Manchester City boss is probably a slightly better coach than Antonio Conte or Jurgen Klopp, I can’t help but think their management skills could see them pip Pep to the title this season.”

The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss shook things up when he took charge at the Etihad in the summer with Jose Hart leaving and Yaya Toure forced to watch from the sidelines for a good chunk of the season.

Collymore has been critical of Guardiola’s ‘My way or the highway’ attitude and reckons the City boss is showing signs that he is “rattled”.

“He got Joe Hart out the door when he would have probably been a better bet this campaign than Claudio Bravo,” Collymore continued.

“And he got into that battle with Yaya Toure and his agent when he’d have been better served keeping him as part of the group for the times he needed him.

“City looked a different team when Toure came on against Chelsea on Saturday.

“Great managers have the ability to walk into a dressing-room, scour it and say of a player: ‘Yes, he’s a little, fat dumpy beggar, and ideally he’s not for me, but in this league, in this set of circumstances, he might just be effective, so I’ll tap into that’.

“Guardiola went down the route of ‘My way or the highway’, and that hasn’t done him any favours.

“Now he looks rattled — massively so — and is starting fray a little around the edges.

“He came across as prickly, arrogant and a little bit condescending in his interview after the defeat on Saturday and players don’t like that.”