Premier League Preview: Are Manchester City in Danger of Missing out on 4th?

The party is in Leicester. The wake is in Manchester.

On paper, it wasn’t so bad. Valiant almost. Over 180 minutes, just a solitary goal was the difference between Manchester City and Real Madrid.

On grass, it wasn’t so good. Deferential almost. Over 180 minutes, the gulf between Manchester City and Real Madrid was such that Real manager Zinedine Zidane could have picked himself in goal and not muddied his suit.

There will be more angst inside the Etihad Stadium on Sunday for the visit of Arsenal than at a Woody Allen convention. The away supporters are reportedly planning another protest in the 12th minute, which will see homemade placards held aloft to spell out in a mosaic: “They’re depressed too, but we’ve been depressed longer.” There won’t be an empty psychiatrist couch seat in the stadium.

What would you rather be: An Arsenal fan or a Leicester City fan? #Compare #Contrasthttps://t.co/r4PkFWqlT6

— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) May 5, 2016

There is no shame in losing to the most successful club in UEFA Champions League history, even less so when it is at a stage in the competition that represents previously uncharted waters. Madrid have played in 21 European Cup semi-finals to City’s one. Real’s five successive European wins at the Santiago Bernabeu at an 18-0 aggregate scoreline was hardly cause for City optimism, either. It was no surprise Madrid finished the night with a 15th win at home from their last 16 games.

Yet to watch Manchester City, for want of a better word, amble around the Bernabeu with all the hunger of fulfilling a pre-season commercial commitment with a little jet leg and not much more enthusiasm meant it was hard to conclude anything other than Wednesday night’s no-show in Madrid could prove to be seismic. A changing of the guard may not be the sole reserve of the City dugout over the summer.

Despite being the first Manchester City side to reach a Champions League semi-final in the club’s history, it looked to be one neither on the up nor in transition but rather in decline.

City better hope it’s Pep (Guardiola) by name, pep by nature, because by God they needed a little of it in the Spanish capital. The sight of Vincent Kompany prone on the turf after 10 minutes was sad, but it was so predictable it’s a wonder Eliaquim Mangala bothered taking his seat on the bench.

That Pepe and Sergio Ramos, neither a choirboy, were both bent over offering conciliatory words to a player who has suffered 16 separate injuries since joining City in 2008, per Transfermarkt, said much about the high regard he is held in even the loftiest of surrounds.

The Belgian is the first player to be substituted twice before the 10th minute because of injury in Champions League history. He’s also the only player to have a Bupa wing named after him.

The manner in which City’s players passed around his captain’s armband as he left the field, as if they’d been handed a live grenade, spoke volumes. A side gilded in gold needs a little more steel.

While Guardiola is unlikely to indulge Kompany’s propensity to pick up injuries as much as his predecessors, the Belgian’s immaculate leadership qualities and undoubted influence at the club should buy him both good grace and a little time to prove his detractors wrong. When the alternatives are Mangala (£42 million), Nicolas Otamendi (£32 million) and Martin Demichelis, it’s easy to see why Kompany is risked so often when only half-fit.

Vincent Kompany’s season… ???? #MCFC (h/t @HLNinEngeland) pic.twitter.com/fwuWgOo5KK

— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) May 5, 2016

Better to hobble off than be hauled off. We need to talk about Yaya (Toure) more than we do Kevin (De Bruyne), even if the former’s continued lethargic presence restricts the latter’s influence to a left-sided role, when his talent both craves and deserves centre stage.

When City went down to the third tier of English football in 1998, a familiar refrain heard from the stands was: “We are not, we’re not really here; we are not, we’re not really here; just like the fans of the invisible man, we’re not really here.” In the intervening 18 years, City have gone from playing Macclesfield to Madrid. The same chant still worked on Wednesday, though.

Toure’s stats for the hour he moseyed around the pitch, looking like a man who had inadvertently wandered onto the grass while killing time before picking his car up from a service, were Kafkaesque: zero goals, zero assists, zero chances created, zero attempts, zero tackles, zero clearances, zero touches in the opposition penalty area, zero successful deliveries into the penalty area and zero successful solo runs into the penalty area. Times likely to be sold by Guardiola in his career: two. The Man Who Disappeared, indeed. Pep will make sure of that.

Yaya Toure vs Real Madrid tonight…pic.twitter.com/zLQOlMyHMO

— BreatheSport (@BreatheSport) May 4, 2016

You cannot but admire a player who, if they spotted a mate in the crowd, would go over for a chat in the middle of the game, but there is more chance of “Jesus, Navas” starting for City next season than Toure. It’s fair to say the Ivorian’s heat map on the night was lukewarm. He looked like he was refereeing at one point, jogging to keep up with play while being …

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