Season Review: Manchester City

At the end of the 2012/13 season, Manchester City will have had very little to take back other than disappointment. Having finished 2^nd in the Premier League, lost the FA Cup final to relegated Wigan Athletic, and finished bottom of their group in the Champions League, the season is definitely the worst City have had under Roberto Mancini. He ultimately paid the price as he was curtly shown the door, and now Manuel Pellegrini waits in the wings. The owners cited his “failure to meet any of his targets this season”, other than qualifying for the Champions League, as the cause of his dismissal. And however much City fans may eulogise him for his antics over the previous two seasons, this one was immensely underwhelming, and the club had stagnated under his tutelage.

The Champions League was the first in a series of failures through the course of the season. Admittedly, City were placed in the toughest of the groups, having none other than the champions of Germany, Spain and the Netherlands to compete with, namely Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid, and Ajax. Excuses were riddled galore beforehand, as to how much more accomplished and experienced their opponents were. But given their spending in recent years, and the talent prevalent in the squad, you’d have expected Mancini’s men to put up a better show than a bottom of the table finish without a single win, and three draws and three losses. The heavy 3-1 away defeat against Ajax was the harshest of the lot, given that they are a comparatively less challenging and arduous team to face than Dortmund or Madrid. However, for the second season running, City were knocked out of the Group Stage of the Champions League, and this time suffered the greater ignominy of finishing last, and thus not availing the ‘privilege’ of Europa League football afforded to those who manage to scrape into third. It is rumoured that the management at City expected to appear in the Round of 16 atleast, and failure at this juncture irked them a fair bit, and Mancini spent the rest of the season under even greater scrutiny than before.

The League Cup eluded Manchester City yet again this season as they crashed to a 4-2 defeat to Aston Villa, at the very first hurdle itself (which in City’s case, was the Third Round of Capital One Cup fixtures). Not only was the defeat (in extra time) humiliating, given that Aston Villa were mired in a relegation battle in the League back then and the game was played in the Etihad Stadium, but it also brought to light the mental fragility of the players, as they succumbed to Villa pressure, and were unable to sustain the pressure into the extra thirty minutes of play. As with the previous season, the Capital One Cup remained a lost cause for City. The owners expected one domestic cup in their cabinet this season, and that was spectacularly thrown to the docks this season. The one hope for retribution in domestic cups that remained was the FA Cup, and City were no strangers to success in that competition.

Unfortunately, at the end of the ninety minutes of the FA Cup Final, it seemed like they were utter and complete strangers to the trophy, playing like a bunch of remote controlled cars whose remotes had gone haywire, with no sense of direction or ambition. In fact, seldom have more disheartening performances come about under Mancini. However, the road up to the final was clocked in certain style, much as we have come to expect from City when they’re well and kicking. Not a single goal was conceded till the semi-final, and teams like Watford, Stoke, Leeds and Barnsley were dispatched with relative ease and maximum force. The semi-finals were played out against Chelsea, and this too was a performance reminiscent of the grandiose of last season, where Nasri, Yaya Toure, Aguero and Tevez put in a breath-taking shift and muscled past a Chelsea team on a good cup run, on their way to the final. The final itself was as languid and insipid a display as you’ll ever see. Credits to Wigan Athletic and Roberto Martinez, undoubtedly, but Mancini was on the brink before the game, and after the defeat his chances of survival at the club looked nonexistent, and with good reason. It is no secret that Wigan’s starting squad was put together for less than what it cost City to buy Sergio Aguero. Given the woeful Premier League campaign, and the emotional value of the FA Cup to City fans and players, this would indeed have been a golden opportunity for retribution, one they dropped with both hands.

It is perhaps testament to City’s progress over the past few years that a second place finish in the League is being condemned in the way it is. It is not so much, however, the finish itself as the manner in which they went through the thirty-eight game season. The season itself began in a rocky manner, as Southampton rattled the holders, and Aguero was lost to injury in the first game of the season. City eventually came from 2-1 down to win 3-2, but the game was ominous for City in more than one way. Their first defeat came as late as December, to who else but Manchester United, as City (again) put in a remarkably shoddy display and had none of the charisma of old, with United edging their rivals out 3-2 at the Etihad. The losses started there on, but City’s main affliction this season was their inability to kill off games, evidenced by the nine games they drew, and their further inability to turn up at games, evidenced by the six losses. Their away form cost them dearly, as nineteen games bought only nine victories, six draws and four losses. In the end, City ended up a chasmic 11 points away from United, and deservedly so. Roberto Mancini continually blamed his team’s under-performance on the signings made in the summer transfer window, but he can never absolve himself of blame after continually chopping and changing the starting squad, and more worryingly, their formations, often voyaging between 3-5-2, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, and a 4-4-1-1.

While it is, though, utterly harsh to lay the blame entirely on the manager, it has to be said that they looked a side disjointed and disinterested for much of the season. The sale of Adam Johnson meant they had lost width and dynamism, and that of Nigel de Jong meant they had lost that steel and unpredictability in midfield. What remained was a fragmented core, and to to top it off, most of the players – in particular Hart, Kompany, Lescott, Barry, Yaya Toure, David Silva, Samir Nasri, Sergio Aguero and Carlos Tevez - played at a far lesser level compared to last season. Those are nine out of eleven starting players. City’s top scorer this season in all competitions was Tevez with a mere 17 goals. To compare, Aston Villa’s top scorer, Christian Benteke, scored 23 goals in all competitions, and Robin Van Persie of United scored 30.

The need of the hour for City is to revamp the squad, and get rid of the dead wood in it. Kolo Toure has already moved to Liverpool, and the likes of Roque Santa Cruz and Wayne Bridge are surely on their way out too. The signings of last season were disastrous, in no uncertain terms, and expect Maicon and Scott Sinclair in other pastures soon. Javi Garcia has improved since he first came, but he still remains a step down from de Jong, and is not an entirely dependable holding midfielder. Jack Rodwell has shown great promise whenever he has played, much like most of his young career. But he has spent most of the season on the recovery table, much like most of his young career. He surely is a player for the future, and if he can sort out his hamstring issues, he can surely replace Gareth Barry at the heart of the City midfield. The signing of the season, though, has to undoubtedly and unequivocally be Serbian centre-back, Matija Nastasic. Signed from Fiorentina in exchange for Stefan Savic, Nastasic has been a rock beside Vincent Kompany, and has arguably outshone the veteran Belgian through the season. Having first displaced Lescott, Nastasic made sure everyone sat up and took notice, as the boy touted to be the ‘next Nemanja Vidic’ built an identity of his own, and stood out as the shining light in a team that shone so very dim.

The player of the season is usually one who scores the most, or dazzles the eye the most. In the Citizens’ case however, strangely enough, it’s the right-back, Pablo Zabaleta, who would come out with the honours. Zabaleta, alongside Nastasic, has been the bulwark of the defence, and his forays forward have compensated for whatever width City may have missed at time. It is unfortunate for him on a personal level to have been sent off and missed out on the FA Cup trophy on the same night. But one can safely say that Zabaleta is the best right-back in the league, and one of the best in world football.

Manchester City will want to forget this season soon, and fill up the void with a few more trophies from next season. Pellegrini’s announcement as the new manager is to be made in the coming week, and expect him to bring about a sea of changes, not least of which will be a more free-flowing game. It is expected that Isco will sign for City along with Pellegrini, and he will be a huge boost in a team which seems too creatively reliant on David Silva. They also need a holding midfielder, a winger (Jesus Navas is tipped to be on the books), a striker and a centre-back to provide back up to Nastasic, Kompany and Lescott. The City hierarchy has supposedly set Pellegrini a target of five trophies in five years. Given his experience, the squad that they have right now, and the investment they expect to make, that seems an achievable target. The question remains, though, can City crawl out of their shell and become players on the European stage, much the way Dortmund has? Stick around in 2013-14 for answers.