Manchester City: Biggest lesson Pep Guardiola learned from Monaco thriller

Manchester City engaged in an incredible eight-goal thriller against Monaco on Tuesday. What will Pep Guardiola have learned from his team’s performance and win?

Manchester City suffered a scare when they took on Monaco in the Champions League. Pep Guardiola’s team eventually came out with a win, after an enthralling game that finished 5-3 to the home team.

The game exhibited the good, the bad and the ugly that has epitomised Manchester City this season. The bad and the ugly almost cost them big time. The good, in the end, bailed them out of a sticky situation.

City remain exciting and dangerous when attacking. They remain equally vulnerable defensively. The same can be said for Monaco, who came into the game as the leading scorers across Europe’s top 5 leagues.

Monaco showed that goalscoring prowess. At the same time, they also revealed some defensive flaws that a team like City feast upon. And so they did. City won the game eventually, and that much was expected beforehand.

But as the game now moves on to the second leg, what will Pep Guardiola have learned from this explosive clash? Guardiola is a master tactician. The Spaniard is not scared to make big, and sometimes controversial, decisions.

Despite City winning, the City boss will know he still has some key issues to try and figure out. If Guardiola learned anything against Monaco, it will be that he now has to somehow try and find a way to somewhat protect his backline.

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Initially, Guardiola did do something that helped considerably: he brought in the all-action Gabriel Jesus to lead the line. The pressing from City’s front three of Jesus, Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling was suffocating for the opposition.

Teams suddenly didn’t get to expose City’s defense quite so much. The result was much improved performances by City from the front of the team to the back. But now Jesus is sidelined with injury, it’s back to the erratic, vulnerable Manchester City that has played much of the season.

Sergio Aguero is more than an able replacement for Jesus – he’s one of the world’s best strikers. But Aguero doesn’t help the team defensively or in keeping possession. City are a different team with Aguero upfront instead of Jesus – less effective at playing Guardiola’s style.

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Worse at maintaining possession, worse at winning the ball back early and worse at defending from the front. With City’s fragile defense, they’re all three things that Guardiola will probably need in Monaco in three weeks time.

Fortunately, Aguero put in probably his best performance for City under Guardiola. It still saw the Argentine give the ball away too much, but the work rate was unquestionable. As, too, the goals.

However, it’s still an open debate whether Aguero can truly adapt long-term to Guardiola’s way of playing. Besides Aguero, City don’t have many alternate options upfront – unless Sane plays as a false 9 or Kelechi Iheanacho is offered a chance to prove what he can do.

So perhaps reinforcing the midfield becomes a better option? Yaya Toure is not good defensively, but is exceptional at starting attacks by picking up the ball from deep. Playing Fernandinho deeper instead, or even moving Pablo Zabaleta into midfield, could be a more defensive option.

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With Monaco’s free-scoring attack and City’s wide-open defense, the second leg is set to be another goal fest. Guardiola is never going to play to protect the two-goal lead his team have. But the Spaniard will still want to limit the goals Monaco can hurt City with.

The City defense alone will not be able to do that. They clearly need help from the midfield and front men. Or both. Guardiola, if nothing else, will know that now from the home game against the Ligue 1 leaders.