F365’s early loser: Aleksandar Kolarov

Daniel Storey

Our early winner was Mauricio Pochettino, and you can read it right here

 

Those proclaiming that Pep Guardiola had already ‘changed the face of English football’ might have been well advised to rein in their hyperbole a touch but, prior to Wednesday evening in Glasgow, he had certainly changed the face of Aleksandar Kolarov. Cavalier left-back had become passing central defender. Guardiola had not cut out the wild shots off target from 30 yards out, but he is no miracle worker. Kolarov’s always gonna Kolarov.

Kolarov’s renaissance hadn’t gone unnoticed either – he has truly been one of Manchester City’s best players this season. ‘Guardiola forgets about Bonucci after Kolarov’s Man City transformation,’ read the Manchester Evening News’ headline on August 26, which for most of the last two years seemed about as likely a story as Sam Allardyce managing England for one game or Leicester winning the Premier League. Guardiola even discussed giving the Serbian a new contract earlier this month, and desrcibed his performance against Sunderland as “one of the best he had ever seen”.

If we have been watching an upgraded model of Kolarov since the beginning of the season, Kolarov 2.0 if you will, against Celtic we saw the return of the original model. Guardiola’s secret defensive weapon might have started in place of the £47.5m John Stones against Bournemouth and instead of Nicolas Otamendi against Swansea, Borussia Monchengladbach, Stoke and Sunderland, but he looked every bit the left-back asked to play centrally on Wednesday night. Gone was the concentration and composure, back was the unreliability and farce. Good cop had been replaced by the bad cop with a self-awarded licence to go rogue.

In the first half, Kolarov gave away two fouls on the edge of his own box with clumsy challenges from behind, made no tackles, completed one clearance and won one of his four aerial duels. More worrying for Guardiola was a passing accuracy of just 60%, one of the horsemen of the Pep-ocalypse. City struggled to find the fluidity in possession that had been a hallmark of his first two months in charge, and Celtic sensed their opportunity.

If Guardiola thought that things could get no worse after the break, Kolarov wasted little time before disproving his theory. After less than two minutes played, Kieran Tierney played a tame cross into the box at which the Serbian inexplicably waved a loose limb, in the style of a lazy traffic warden. Moussa Dembele was only happy to accept the present, his overhead kick giving Celtic a 3-2 lead that would become a valuable home point.

It was the lowest ebb of a rotten night and, by 70 minutes, Guardiola had seen enough. John Stones’ introduction prompted a frantic waving of arms to instruct Kolarov to left-back. Some might comment that having full-backs playing at full-back and centre-backs playing at centre-back is far to unimaginative for Guardiola, with tongues planted firmly in cheeks.

Having scored three or more goals for the seventh time in 11 competitive matches this season, Guardiola will know that City should have won in Glasgow despite never being ahead. Coupled with Barcelona’s comeback victory in Monchengladbach, this was the first poor night of his tenure. His side must surely take four points off Barcelona to top Group C. Unfortunately, Guardiola only has himself to blame; Sunday should see the return of John Stones to the starting line-up to partner Nicolas Otamendi.

For Kolarov, it’s a giant stumble backward after several steps in the right – or should that be central – direction. It still remains an option for Manchester City, but surely only through necessity rather than choice.

 

Daniel Storey