Kickoff | 'Pep is to blame for what's happening at Man City'

The Citizens head into Saturday's clash against Aston Villa in fifth position on the league standings, following defeat to cross-town rivals Manchester United last weekend. The defeat to United was City's fifth of this season, which is two more than they suffered during the entire 2023/24 league campaign and former Red Devils star Dwight Yorke believes the blame starts with the coach. "He is to blame for what is happening at City.

Part of the reason City haven’t won many games recently is because Pep is stubborn," Yorke told sportslens.com. "This is my take on it, I might be wrong, and I’m not saying this lightly, but when you're that great a manager, you become set in your ways in terms of how you set your team up.



"If you divert from those ideas, if you start changing and chopping, going away from your philosophy and ideas, it creates uncertainty within your players’ minds and doubts start to creep in. "After a couple of games where City have lost, you think, ‘okay, I get what he's doing,’ but he's got players on the bench and he’s not using them. "He doesn't make changes until it’s too late, even when he’s getting beaten.

Normally a manager would not panic, but they would at least try to make some changes to get back into the game, but sometimes he leaves his best players on the bench, and people are scratching their heads.".