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Rob Dawson, Correspondent
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Manchester City have arrived in Saudi Arabia looking to add the FIFA Club World Cup to their already bulging trophy cabinet, but for the first time in a while, their reign as kings of England is under threat.
History suggests Pep Guardiola’s team should lift the trophy at King Abdullah Sports City on Friday, because the European representative and UEFA Champions League winner usually does. But they’ve creaked enough in the Premier League over the first half of the season to give everyone else in Jeddah — including Brazil’s Fluminense, champions of South America — just that little bit of hope.
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City don’t do wobbles like most other teams. And at a time when they’re being questioned, they still managed to fly through the group stage of the Champions League with a perfect record of six wins from six. In the Premier League, though, it has been a different story.
They’ve already dropped points in seven games — four draws and three defeats — to slip behind Liverpool, Arsenal and Aston Villa in the table. Twice this season there have been such blips, including three defeats in four games in September and October, and one win in five in November and December. The ship appeared to steady with wins against Luton Town and Red Star Belgrade, but after a 2-2 home draw with Crystal Palace on Saturday immediately before their flight to Saudi Arabia, there remains a feeling that this team is far more vulnerable then the 2022-23 treble winners.
City face Japanese side Urawa Red Diamonds in their Club World Cup semifinal on Tuesday for a place in Friday’s final against either Fluminense or Al Ahly of Egypt, who knocked out Karim Benzema‘s Al Ittihad on Friday.
“It would be better to go on a six- or seven-hour flight with a win, of course,” said Guardiola. “We have just three days to recover, and then just three days for a potential final, but it is what it is. Now we are down and we have to lift for the Middle East as quickly as possible and go to compete there.”
Problems, though, are mounting at home. Never before have Guardiola’s City had fewer than their current 34 points after 17 games in the Premier League.
On Saturday, Crystal Palace scored twice in the final 14 minutes — including a 95th-minute penalty — to come back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 at the Etihad Stadium, and afterwards, Guardiola did not want to look for excuses. “It’s not bad luck, it’s deserved,” said the City manager, who has been without star striker Erling Haaland for the past three games because of a foot injury. “We gave away two points and if you give away a penalty, you deserve it.”
Conceding late goals is becoming something of a theme for City, who have let leads slip against Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and now Palace in their past six games. “[The Palace game] was quite similar to the rest of the season,” Guardiola said. “We were not able to close the game and when you give them a penalty, we didn’t deserve to win.”
Despite their domestic struggles, City have still arrived in Jeddah as heavy favourites, but what will give everyone else just a glimmer of hope is the loss of the thing Guardiola craves more than anything: control. He often judges the quality of a performance by the number of shots his goalkeeper has faced, and by almost every statistical metric, opponents are having more success against City this season.
Their possession percentage in Premier League games this season is down from 64.9% to 61.3%, they’ve faced an average of 5.8 shots per game in the league this season compared to 5.3 last season, and Premier League opponents are averaging 0.933 Expected Goals (xG) this season after averaging 0.864 xG last season.
City have conceded costly late goals, but have also developed a habit of going behind, too. They’ve conceded the opening goal in six games this season after doing it just seven times throughout the whole of last season.
It hasn’t helped Guardiola that he has been without two of his three treble-winning midfielders — Ilkay Gündogan joined Barcelona in the summer, while Kevin De Bruyne hasn’t played since the opening weekend of the season after undergoing hamstring surgery — and the other, Rodri, has already served two suspensions. The Spain midfielder has missed four domestic games, and City have lost each time. It’s hard to predict what team Guardiola might pick against Urawa Red Diamonds — conscious of a packed Christmas fixture list upon their return to England — but you can bet Rodri will be in it.
City have issues to solve if they want to make it a record four Premier League titles in a row, but the question is whether their competition at the Club World Cup is good enough to expose them. European teams have dominated the tournament since its inception in 2000, winning the past 10 in a row. History is behind Guardiola and his players in Saudi Arabia, even if form is not.