Gary Neville admits he ‘can’t believe’ what Pep Guardiola has done at Man City recently

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Pep Guardiola is currently in the middle of his ninth season in charge of Manchester City.

With the last international break of 2024 now underway, City headed into this period in the worst run of form they’ve ever had under Guardiola.

Specifically, having lost their four previous matches across all competitions, this is the first time Guardiola has ever seen one of his sides do such a thing.

After last weekend’s 2-1 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion, Guardiola admitted City needed the international break to come when it has given the number of fitness issues they currently have in their squad.

Now that the break has arrived for the final time this calendar year, a pundit and previous Premier League winner has made an observation about something he’s been shocked by from the City manager.

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Gary Neville astounded by Pep Guardiola’s method of dealing with Rodri’s absence

In a recent edition of Stick to Football, Gary Neville admitted he’s been left baffled by how he considers Guardiola to have dealt with not having Rodri in his team, saying this on the matter.

He said: “I can’t believe he has just gone [Mateo] Kovacic in. I said this when he got injured Rodri, I was expecting him to come up with something like a three at the back or something different.” 

Graeme Souness exposed big Kovacic issue

Since Rodri suffered his season-ending knee injury back in September against Arsenal, Kovacic has started all six of City’s following Premier League matches, completing the full 90 minutes in five of them.

Prior to last weekend’s defeat against Brighton, Graeme Souness exposed Kovacic’s main weakness, saying this on the matter in a recent newspaper column.

He said: “The major issue is that Mateo Kovacic, though a very good footballer, does not have a defensive thought in his head.

“On the eve of the season, knowing that Rodri was going to miss a few games, Kovacic talked about how he was going to have to take on more responsibility, adjust his game and how Pep had been showing him DVDs of the positions Rodri takes up.

“I’d suggest he does a lot more homework. Kovacic is drawn to getting on the ball, but that’s not his priority now. My thought was always to protect my two centre-halves.

“What he should be doing is: support the play but seldom be in front of the ball, and sense where that vulnerability is.”

Given how City have only kept two clean sheets and conceded 13 goals across their 11 league matches, it’s clear that they have had some defensive issues this season.

However, for Neville – who has shown how difficult it can be to manage a team – to question Guardiola for how he’s seemingly dealt with not having Rodri available, it’s not right to just summarise the Catalan’s main method to fix this particular issue by saying he’s just played Kovacic instead of the Spaniard and expected to get the same results.