On days such as this, Manchester City’s quest to reach the rarefied air occupied by Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich appears little further forward than when the club were first crowned Premier League champions.
That was in May 2012 under Roberto Mancini. Under Manuel Pellegrini there continue to be performances that must seriously trouble the owner, Sheikh Mansour, and the executives who run the club.
There should be no mistake, though. Stoke City were a sparkling spectacle: a fast, smart, menacing side led by Bojan Krkic, Xherdan Shaqiri and Marko Arnautovic, who all excelled.
Mark Hughes deserves huge credit for proving what a shrewd strategist he can be. The Stoke manager was brave enough to field Krkic, Shaqiri and Arnautovic as a front three for the first time and brave enough afterwards to admit he had previously lacked the courage to do so.
Pellegrini, too, was honest when asked if the style of this defeat was what concerned. Any side can lose, of course. Yet there was no fight, no lateral thinking to try to stymie Stoke and, most alarmingly, City’s gilded players collectively lost the touch, pass, and spatial awareness that are the fundamentals of any footballer.
City were similarly steamrollered by Liverpool, when Jürgen Klopp’s side gave them a 4-1 hiding at the Etihad Stadium on 21 November. After this latest defeat, Pellegrini said: “Yes, of course, the manner of the defeat is a concern. The way it reflects is that this is a team that has not recovered from some of the last games. Maybe we have – a not exactly the same, but a similar – defeat against Liverpool, when all the players were coming back from the international break. But, I repeat, it is the aim of this squad to be involved in all the competitions.”
Last Tuesday City were in Capital One Cup action, beating Hull City to move into the semi-finals. On Tuesday they have a final Champions League group match, at home to Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Pellegrini does have a lengthy injury list and three of his best players, Sergio Agüero, Vincent Kompany and Yaya Touré, are on it. Samir Nasri, Pablo Zabaleta and the 18-year-old Patrick Roberts were also unavailable for this game while Fernando added to Pellegrini’s concerns when he limped off with a hamstring problem.
Hughes and his men deserve to bask in the glory of this triumph. For the whole 90 minutes Krkic, Shaqiri and Arnautovic were a delight of killer movement and passes, while behind them Geoff Cameron and Glenn Whelan were a formidable midfield presence.
Arnautovic scored both Stoke’s goals and he might have had five. They came on seven and 15 minutes and exposed City’s powder-puff rearguard. First Shaqiri left Fernando on the floor, swerved beyond Aleksandar Kolarov, and crossed for the Austrian to beat Martín Demichelis and Bacary Sagna, before he finished past Joe Hart. Then, Shaqiri again made Fernando look a mug as he whizzed inside and offloaded a slide-rule pass to Arnautovic that was struck beyond Hart. Sagna, once more, failed to cover.
Hughes said: “We always look at various games and the strengths, weaknesses of the opposition. We do that for every game we play. You have to have the right personnel to play like we did. We had good energy in midfield, legs so to speak, in the way Geoff Cameron and [Ibrahim] Afellay got around the pitch. Glenn Whelan will obviously organise behind. Ahead of them we had a creative spark and ability in key areas of the field which would hopefully create us chances.
“That’s what’s probably been lacking from our game in previous weeks, we just haven’t had quite enough devilment in the opposition box, we haven’t got shots off, we haven’t created enough chances. We addressed that, thankfully. We did OK.”
After this 90-minute show of brilliance, Stoke should no longer have the tag of dour football attached to them. Instead, Hughes should be respected for having a smart managerial brain and for assembling a squad filled with game-changers.
As the Welshman said: “The top four to five teams can only take so many and that means there are exceptional players out there that you can bring and give them an opportunity and a platform to come and enjoy the Premier League. That’s what we’ve given to players.
“We had to be brave and that’s what we were. We had to make it happen. If only half of them committed to what we were doing and the other half didn’t it would have just crumbled around our ears. Thankfully it didn’t because every one of them was committed to what we were trying to do and that’s why we got the performance we did.”
Next up for Stoke is West Ham United on Saturday, while City hope that they can beat Mönchengladbach at the Etihad on Tuesday and that Sevilla defeat Juventus, meaning Pellegrini’s side would win Group D and have a better chance of a favourable draw in the last 16.
But, again, they will be without Agüero, Kompany and Touré. Injuries are a mitigation but cannot entirely excuse this performance. Another display like this and Pellegrini may face an interrogation.
Man of the match Xherdan Shaqiri (Stoke City)
