While it seemed we might have been turning a corner this summer, recent events have steered the current situation from bad to worse.
What’s been said?
Despite missing out on the Premier League title last season, we appeared to be heading in the right direction by signing the versatile defender Nathan Ake, and the tricky winger Ferran Torres from Valencia, who made his debut last night in the Carabao Cup.
Pep Guardiola turned to the younger players as we bypassed Bournemouth 2-1 at the Etihad, with 17-year-old Liam Delap stealing the headlines for us with a well-taken goal.
We could be seeing more of him after Sergio Aguero was ruled out for another two months as he recovers from knee surgery. Our number ten joins the likes of Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan, Eric Garcia, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Aymeric Laporte and Joao Cancelo in the treatment room, as per Fotmob.
After last night’s game, Guardiola gave an update on the current situation, which was a gravely concerning one, cited by the Independent.
“Well, the situation we have right now, we have just 13 players available in the first team”, he said. “We need the Academy, not just for the training sessions. They can be selected during the games.
“With the problems we have up front, of course Liam will stay with us. We’ll see if we need him or use him.
“But we cannot forget, like the same way we spoke about Phil Foden in previous seasons, he’s just 17 years old. He has a lot of things to improve, steps need their own time.”
Delay heading for the panic stations
While Guardiola’s comments might be worrying for us, we have plenty of young players coming through that could potentially do a job for us.
I saw several players including Adrian Bernabe and Thomas Doyle that had good games for us. While Taylor Harwood-Bellis looked solid at the back, that area of the pitch is the only concern for me. As I’ve previously said, we urgently need a defender to replace Laporte and that can eventually fill in alongside him.
Thank goodness we have Nathan Ake, our situation would have been much worse without him. But despite this, there is no need to panic.
We need to have faith in what Guardiola is doing. I believe that more players will come in before the transfer deadline of October 5th. It is just a case of taking one game at a time and seeing how we fare.