Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola already feeling the heat as he prepares for crucial Champions League qualifier
Spaniard goes into play–off clash in Bucharest faced with a collection of annoying issues that threaten to disrupt his plans
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PEP GUARDIOLA is not in full fire-fighting mode. Not yet, anyway.
But there are little blazes breaking out all around him.
And unless he extinguishes them quickly, then things are liable to start getting pretty hot.
The Spanish supercoach is someone who famously likes all his ducks in a row.
His attention to detail, his demand that everything is neat and tidy and sorted is all but an obsession.
Yet he goes into tonight’s Champions League play–off clash in Bucharest faced with a collection of annoying issues that threaten to disrupt focus on the first target of his debut campaign as Etihad supremo.
Which is to ensure that Manchester City are in the Champions League draw a week on Friday.
On the face of it, Steaua should not present a major problem, even if they currently lie top of Romania’s Liga 1.
And Pep has plenty of talent to rely upon. But it is difficult to ignore the fact that things around him are all a bit messy.
There are plenty of issues threatening to burst into flame.
Joe Hart’s situation is just one of them. England’s No 1 goalkeeper is clearly not Guardiola’s No 1 and by dropping him for Saturday’s Prem opener against Sunderland he threw petrol on the fire.
The City boss insisted in Bucharest last night that Hart had been “perfect” since he took over.
Yet Willy Caballero will almost certainly keep his place tonight in the Arena Nationala.
When Guardiola was pressed about Hart’s standing, he looked cagey and defensive and a Uefa official insisted no more questions could be asked on the subject.
But Hart’s representatives insist he has been told to find pastures new.
And it can do no good to have someone as passionate and committed as Hart hanging around a squad feeling like a spare part.
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There is also confusion surrounding Guardiola’s plans to replace Hart, with Barcelona’s Claudio Bravo a £17million target.
Yet the word inside City is the new manager’s spending is already over for this transfer window.
His decision not to include Yaya Toure on the trip, after he blanked him for the Sunderland game, also posed more questions than answers.
Toure is paid £250,000 per week but his absence is a clear indication that the man who sold the powerhouse midfielder to City for £24m in 2010 when he was Barcelona manager has no plans to use him.
Yet Guardiola yesterday insisted the Ivorian has been “amazing” in training.
So amazing that the 33-year-old, who is now in the last year of his mega contract remains back home at the Etihad. Training, no doubt.
Samir Nasri and Wilfried Bony have been bombed out of the Euro squad and told to find other clubs. It is understood City, no matter what Guardiola says, would like moody Toure to find new employers, too.
The problem is Toure has told City he wants to stay in the Prem and Etihad bigwigs refuse to allow that for fear of him coming back to haunt them.
Toure, plus Nasri, Bony and a disconsolate Hart, represent wasted wages of around £750,000 a week but none of them are close to upping sticks.
Guardiola flew to Romania with his players on Sunday on the back of a less than convincing display against the Black Cats.
The Spaniard was twitchy and defensive about that 2–1 home win, earned thanks to a late Paddy McNair own goal.
It was hardly the kind of performance that marked a new Etihad era under him.
To add to the annoying list that Guardiola has to tidy up, £54m star Kevin De Bruyne has admitted the Pep Effect is going to take time to feel natural to the players. The Belgian is sure the former Barca and Bayern Munich master will ultimately get things right in Manchester.
Yet De Bruyne was a little puzzled as to where he was deployed against Sunderland.
He said of his experience of that first competitive game under Guardiola: “It’s a little adjusting.
“But it was OK. He has his tactics. I do not play really as a No 10. More as a free eight.
“There is a lot of movement everywhere. Everyone is starting to understand it.
“You see sometimes that one is thinking ‘Where should I run?’
“The intention is to play from the back and than roll it to me and David Silva so we try to be five against four.
“Against Sunderland it was OK, we have had chances.
“There will come matches with more risk. Sunderland was the first, it is a bit of adapting for all.”
It is the time City’s players take to adapt that will be a cause for concern for Guardiola, however.
Especially as he still has to acclimatise £37m Leroy Sane and £20m Ilkay Gundogan, who are both yet to make their debuts.
Meanwhile, there remains the need to ensure that Steaua do not get in the way of the first stage of the Guardiola masterplan.
And the first leg of that clash — the return is next Wednesday — has to be handled with a lot of background noise going on.
Pep’s first few days in charge, now that the season has actually begun, have been nothing like as controlled and calm as he would have wanted.
And those little fires continue to spark up around him...
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