After City's dismal showing in the FA Community Shield this weekend, the media has picked up on Manuel Pellegrini's comments regarding his side's star players returning from the World Cup.
'It's difficult to be ready in two weeks,' the Chilean admitted, telling the press '[w]e have seven players who have just worked five days who were not considered for this game.'
Those seven are of course World Cup knock-out stage stars Kompany, Fernandinho and new boy Sagna, World Cup finalists Agüero, Demichelis and Zabaleta, plus ex-Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard. Whilst Pellegrini's hands were tied in terms of fielding his first teamers - it would have been pointless risking his most important players at Wembley on Sunday - the City boss's reasoning behind his team selection was both revealing and alarming.
(Manuel Pellegrini watched his side crumble to a 3-0 defeat against Arsenal on Sunday)
City's World Cup players will have had barely a fortnight of pre-season training by the time the Premier League kicks off next weekend, with Pellegrini hinting that some may still not be match-fit for City's opening fixture away to Newcastle.
'They will have [had] 15 days before we start the Premier League, so we will see which of them are ready and which of them are not ready,' the Chilean admitted.
Whilst a simple acknowledgment of the facts by Pellegrini, such comments will hardly instil confidence in a City side left battered and bruised by Arsenal's commanding Wembley victory over them.
Last season, Pellegrini's judgement was called in to question by all and sundry, as fans and pundits alike saw his City team produce breath-taking, attacking football one week, calamitous, error-strewn football the next. Eventually the Blues came good, winning their second League Title in two years and vindicating Pellegrini's faith in positive, aggressive play and Martin Demichelis. But with Chelsea, Arsenal, United and Liverpool all strengthening considerably this summer, and the Blues tasked with retaining their Title, a feat so fiendishly difficult that only two teams - United and Chelsea - have achieved it during the Premier League era, next season looks far from easy for City.
Admitting his frustration at the lack of recuperation his first teamers have had this summer shows honesty from Pellegrini, and also deflected attention away from the poor performance given at Wembley by a mostly second-string City side. Whilst you could argue that the City manager was just excusing the obvious - that City were atrocious, and soundly beaten by their rivals - verbally bashing the team on the head after such a game would be to no-one's benefit; the match, after all, had been lost, and all City can do is learn from such an experience.
The main problem unearthed by a classy, confident Arsenal side in the Community Shield was City's lack of squad depth. Certain players are still coming back from long-term injury problems but the likes of Boyata and Nastasić simply don't get enough playing time for the Blues at any level, let alone in the first team. They won't play much for the EDS, as that is now City's arena for blooding their youth prospects, so how can we expect peripheral squad members to improve? According to transfermarkt.co.uk, Boyata made a total of 7 appearances for City last term, a grand total of 608 minutes of football, 90 minutes of which were in the U21 league. I'm not denying that Boyata up until now has hardly showed himself in the best of lights when playing in a City shirt, and once again looked out of his depth against Arsenal, but if a player gets virtually no chance to play and learn from his mistakes then how can we expect them to develop?
Basically, the Blues have a very modern-day football problem; their Starting XI is world class but injury prone (Kompany, Agüero) and their back-up XI is and has been a mixture of faded youth prospects (Boyata, Richards), more injury strugglers (the now departed Rodwell) and failed purchases who haven’t lived up to scratch (Sinclair, Nastasić). Squad players become ever more important as the game becomes increasingly demanding, technically, physically and mentally, and the sheer length of the season when you're fighting on four fronts means that even the best of players must be rested at times. Because of the influx of money and talent at the Etihad, City are now rightly battling it out at football's highest levels, but their squad players are still a throw-back to their mid-table days.
Don't get me wrong; Nastastić will still hopefully come good, if he doesn't get sold, and players such as Sinclair and Clichy would walk into most Premier League teams. Yet this season's Community Shield emphasised one thing more than most; whilst City's first-choice XI really do play as a team these days, there is a disconnect between the squad as a whole that needs rectifying. The answer, unfortunately, may be a good few years away yet. Whilst City's Academy has had modest success recently, producing players such as Shaun Wright-Phillips and Nedum Onuoha, the Blues desperately need their Shaws, Ward-Prowses and Walcotts to come through on a regular basis. Talking of Southampton alumni, Calum Chambers gave a magnificent Wembley performance at centre-half for Arsenal on Sunday, belying his years and thwarting an in-form Jovetić and a mercurial Džeko. In a week where ex-City man Rodwell has warned other young English players to steer clear of the Etihad for the sake of their careers, you have to wonder where the Blue's next Academy superstar is going to come from. For now, most City fans would settle for Academy graduates that they could rely on.
The manner of City's defeat at Wembley was most disappointing of all, making Pellegrini's post-match comments seem even more churlish. Most fans could accept that a side missing its spine and beating heart in Agüero, Kompany and Zabaleta may not cut the mustard, but City weren't just out-classed by Arsenal yesterday, they were out-fought. The Gunners wanted it more, and there was an air about the Blues that this didn't really matter, that they could throw on some kids and reserves and save the big boys till next week. Whether a couple of City's World Cup stars could have enjoyed a 20 minute cameo is a moot point, but what Blues fans rightly expect is for their team, whether first-choice or not, to give it their all, especially when playing at the national stadium. City were second to almost every ball, failed to press or read Arsenal effectively and gave up wholesale after Giroud's stunning goal made it 3-0. On another day, the Blues might have snaffled a goal, but their performance didn't deserve one, and after the highs of last season, this was a bitter blow for City fans to take. By the time the Capital One Cup Third Round arrives, and City's second-string are wheeled out once again, it would be nice to see on show the desire for the shirt that the fans crave, no matter what the result. Even better would be a situation where some, if not all, of the second-choice players begin to force themselves into contention once more, giving Pellegrini a selection headache.
The Chilean answered his critics in the best possible fashion last season, proving over nine months just how astute he is. Fielding a weakened side at Wembley was understandable, lamenting the shortness of pre-season equally so, but failing to name a committed and hungry team on Sunday can class as Pellegrini's first mistake of 14/15. Of course, the players must take responsibility for their performance too, but the buck ultimately rests with the manager. The good thing for City fans is that losing 3-0 invariably tells you more than winning 3-0 does. The Engineer has his first conundrum of the season to solve; let's hope his solution is in place before too long.