Manchester City are very familiar with battling Liverpool for Premier League titles.
Since Pep Guardiola took charge of City back in 2016, the Blues have won six Premier League trophies, whereas Liverpool have won just one in that time.
In the six seasons where the Manchester club were crowned league champions, the Reds finished second behind them on two occasions, with the Citizens coming second in the year Liverpool won it.
After nine years of having Jurgen Klopp in charge, Liverpool appointed Arne Slot as the German’s replacement back in May.
With Liverpool and City currently being the top two sides in the Premier League, a pundit and former top-flight player has suggested that the champions are now facing an issue that Klopp had to deal with during his reign at Anfield.
- Man City 2024/25 squad cost in full: Transfer fees and stats for every player
Pundit makes Liverpool comparison after Man City’s trio of defeats
When asked if the age of some of City’s midfield options such as Mateo Kovacic (30), Ilkay Gundogan (34), Kevin De Bruyne (33) and Bernardo Silva (30) is becoming a problem for the club, Jermaine Pennant made this comparison on the matter.
He said: “If you’re a Man City fan, I think that should be a little bit of a concern because we’ve seen it with Liverpool.
“When Liverpool were firing and when they slowly started to decline, their midfield was that age range.
“Thiago 30, Fabinho 31, Jordan Henderson 32, 33. They were all getting on down that peak, down that slide. going towards the better end of their peak careers.
“And Liverpool’s midfield was just getting run over and everyone was talking about it season after season they didn’t invest in that midfield. That was their weakest point and teams would just dominate them in midfield.
“As a professional athlete when you start to get over that cliff 31, 32s, you’re not a sharp, you’re not as quick as you once were. And teams who do ramp up their midfield like Liverpool have, they’ve got a young fresh midfield and you can see the difference.”
City may need youth injection into their squad
Having lost 4-1 to Sporting CP in the Champions League on Tuesday night, City have now lost three games on the bounce for the first time since 2018.
With an average age of 27.7, only four other clubs in the Premier League have a higher average squad age than City.
Bearing in mind how Txiki Begiristain is leaving City in the summer, with Hugo Viana set to take over as the club’s sporting director, perhaps bringing in some young midfielders to freshen up that area of City’s squad should be a top priority for the upcoming summer transfer window.
In fact, with Rodri suffering a season-ending injury back in September, Guardiola opened the door for City to sign a potential midfielder in the January transfer window, saying this on the matter.
He said: “We will see. We talked today with Txiki, we will see what’s going on. We don’t have to decide tomorrow, right? We have time to see the potential problems we will have and after we will see.”
