Enzo Maresca’s Manchester City side produced a disappointing display against Arsenal on Sunday and appeared to deviate from the style the Italian has repeatedly stated he wants to implement
Has the Community Shield loss indicated that Manchester City will find it hard to retain the Premier League title, or had Maresca’s focus already shifted towards more significant objectives?
City supporters who have monitored Maresca’s squad throughout pre-season may have been bewildered by what they witnessed in the Community Shield. Despite numerous connections being made, especially following the recent Asia tour, Maresca made several unexpected choices that had the effect of making the side appear significantly inferior
Clearly, they had not faced a side of Arsenal’s quality prior to the weekend – yet it still seemed City were suddenly considerably less cohesive than their individual talents suggested. This was made all the more puzzling by the inclusion of four of their star players in the starting eleven despite their recent return from leave
Did those 90 minutes provide a concerning indication of City’s decline following Pep Guardiola’s departure that will soon become evident in the league campaign? Possibly, though some of Maresca’s selections were such a departure from his previous work that much of the concern generated by the display may be unfounded
Amazon Prime subscribers can stream all four instalments of the Pep Guardiola documentary series A Beautiful Obsession, documenting the former boss’s final two years at the Etihad Stadium, at no extra cost when it premieres on August 19
Regarding the four players returning from holiday, throwing Erling Haaland, Elliot Anderson, Nico O’Reilly and Jeremy Doku straight back into the first eleven after minimal training sessions suggested a manager determined to claim silverware. Why else would he reintegrate them when alternatives who had more time to absorb Maresca’s methods were available?
According to the head coach afterwards, giving them game time from the start represented the optimal preparation for this weekend’s fixture against Bournemouth and the season’s opening encounters, rather than placing them in the unfamiliar situation of coming on as substitutes
He explained that sometimes athletes prefer to begin with a proper warm-up and start from the outset, with the intention being to replace all four after 45 minutes or up to an hour maximum – a decision made before the match commenced. Put simply, the main reason for fielding them against Arsenal was to speed up their sharpness for the competitive start
Anderson in particular endured a difficult afternoon being deployed out of position. Just days after Maresca had been explicit that the former Nottingham Forest man’s optimal positions are as a deep-lying playmaker or box-to-box midfielder, he was moved out to the right flank in an unusual floating role that suited neither him nor the overworked Mateo Kovacic, who was overwhelmed as the lone defensive midfielder
There were occasional signs of Anderson’s attacking abilities from the right side, with two superb deliveries into the penalty area for Haaland and Doku, but it still felt unnatural. The same could be said for the exclusion of Matheus Nunes, who has been endorsed as the club’s primary right-back to such an extent that intentions to recruit competition for him during the transfer window have been abandoned; in his absence, Abdukodir Khusanov struggled alongside the rest of the rearguard
Those two decisions compounded City’s afternoon and raised questions about Maresca, yet his prior statements and actions before Sunday indicated that the Community Shield would prove the exception rather than the rule in those particular areas. City ought to look considerably more effective with Anderson deployed more suitably and Nunes bolstering the backline
The day’s other unexpected selection saw Jack Grealish introduced for the second half, having spent last term on loan at Everton before missing the summer schedule while City continued their attempts to move him on during the transfer window. His minutes might have benefited Rayan Ait-Nouri more, for instance, yet it is also reasonable to suggest that any clubs monitoring the £100m player’s availability would have been pleased with his contribution on Sunday, potentially facilitating a potential transfer
As a first significant examination of Maresca, Sunday represented a failure that leaves uncertainty over how he will communicate his philosophy and whether it will prove sufficient to compete for the Premier League and Champions League. Simultaneously, some of the selections were so unlike his usual approach that it could easily indicate a longer-term strategy being pursued
The Community Shield defeat, particularly in the fashion it occurred, has prompted many to pass swift and definitive verdicts on Maresca’s City. The coming weeks may demonstrate that isolating a single 90-minute spell was never going to provide anything approaching a complete picture of what this side will become