Another year, another disaster for Manchester City in the Champions League.
As brilliant as Pep Guardiola has been in the Premier League since his arrival at the club, his failings in Europe have become difficult to ignore. They have failed to advance beyond the quarter final in the last four years, each time being knocked out by teams they would have been strong favourites against.
Another consistent theme in those losses is Guardiola's tendency to pick a strange team in European games, something that was certainly the case last night. the 3-5-2 system is one that we have very rarely seen used by City, so to see it against Lyon was a major surprise.
Ultimately it did little to reinforce their defence, while also taking far too much away from the side in advanced areas.
Manchester City are likely to spend big once again before the start of next season, but as we have seen that is no guarantee of success in Europe.
Could the Spaniard decide to move on? Speaking on Virgin Media last night, Brian Kerr said he wouldn't be surprised to see Pep Guardiola 'pack it in' out of frustration.
Is this it for Pep at City?
Niall Quinn & Brian Kerr discuss after tonight's defeat.#MCILYO | #UCL#FestivalOfFootball 🎡🎪⚽️ pic.twitter.com/VX106vG6Z6— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) August 15, 2020
I said before the end of the match tonight that I wouldn't be surprised if he packed it in out of frustration that they haven't reached the goal that was set for them.
They've won four leagues in the last eight years... So they've done that side of it. They've won cups and League Cups to beat the band, but the money was spent to win the elite competition.
They haven't achieved that. They went out to Liverpool, they went out to Spurs, they shouldn't have been beaten by Spurs. They went out to Monaco, they shouldn't be beaten by Monaco...
I think they'll be looking at some of the analysis of it and listening to people around the club who will be looking at it with a jaundiced and very critical eye at the selections.
The team selection is sure to be a major talking point in the coming days.
The three-man defence didn't work, while the midfield lacked creativity despite the presence of Kevin De Bruyne. Niall Quinn believes that players in the dressing would have been questioning the manager's team selection.
Why did they play that way? Why did he put out that team? The flair has gotten Manchester City to where they are, but the excitement was taken out of them by the manager tonight before they kicked a ball...
It goes back to the idea that as much as Pep wants to look brilliant going forward, to make a decision to play that team tonight.
I said it last year when he put that team out against Spurs in the away leg, I just couldn't understand why he was doing this, taking all the aces he had and putting them to one side and allowing a neutrality almost to come into their play.
They've done the exact same thing tonight...
I'm scratching my head with that team tonight. I'm sure there were players in that dressing room going 'I can't believe the team he has picked tonight'.
