There are caveats. It was only the Community Shield – and no side has gone on to win the league after lifting the Community Shield since 2018. It was against the league champions, whose pre-season has involved far less strenuous travel than their own. By the time the season really gets going, there will be greater clarity in central midfield, with Rodri set to complete his move to Barcelona imminently. But this was a startlingly bad opening for Enzo Maresca at Manchester City.
Succeeding a manager of Pep Guardiola’s stature is never easy, as numerous clubs have found. But it’s not just Guardiola’s stature, the sense that whoever follows him stands in his shadow. It’s that his style of play is so idiosyncratic that the transition process inevitably becomes more difficult. Even though Maresca was Guardiola’s assistant at City in 2022-23, and his football is Guardiola-inspired, it is not identical, not least because Guardiola was always evolving. Even allowing for all that, though, it was remarkable how poorly City defended in their 3-0 defeat by Arsenal on Sunday.
Arsenal played well. There was a sharpness to them and a slickness to their passing that wasn’t always present last season. Fears that they may have lost their appetite having ended their 22-year wait for the title may have been overstated (although much, much tougher tests await). But City were a rabble, limited going forward and a shambles at the back.
It was the second goal that will really have worried them, because Arsenal had to do so little to score. Martin Ødegaard was given time to measure his cross. Christos Tzolis wandered off the back of Abdukodir Khusanov. Then Kai Havertz, slightly more explicably, pulled away from Rúben Dias. In Khusanov’s defence, it probably should be acknowledged that he does not usually play at right-back, but he has occupied the role before. A wide player drifting off your back should not come as a shock; perhaps it’s just pre-season and he was not as alert as he will be, but it was a baffling error. But it was of a piece with the wider whole; throughout, City seemed off the pace, not as focused as Arsenal. Even if that improves as the season goes on, it’s a problem if City have title aspirations; how far clear will Arsenal be by the time City finally click – if they do click?
But there were structural issues on that flank as well. Antoine Semenyo was barely involved. Elliot Anderson, on the right of the midfield two, was unable to check the forward surges of Riccardo Calafiori, who scored the first and whose run played a key role in the third. An attacking left-back, even one with as much freedom to drift infield as the Italian enjoys, shouldn’t cause that much trouble.
The midfield issue desperately needs resolving. Rodri was an unused substitute as talks about his possible likely move to Barcelona go on (City accepted a bid for him on Sunday night). It’s not just his quality that will be missed; his organisational abilities will be too. Enzo Fernández, who worked with Maresca at Chelsea, did seem to have been lined up as a replacement for Rodri but City did not submit a bid before the Friday 5pm deadline Chelsea had placed for selling the midfielder. Mateo Kovacic spent much of last season deputising for Rodri but he is 32 now; he is not the future. Factor in the loss of Bernardo Silva as well, and there is a serious shortfall in midfield.
Generally, in fact, City’s squad looks a little short. Dias and Marc Guéhi are the only defenders over 25. There are plenty of attacking midfielders but Omar Marmoush has never really convinced as a back-up to Erling Haaland. The £200m spree in January 2025 may have helped stop the rot, but the players who came in then – not just Marmoush and Khusanov but also Vitor Reis and Nico González – would not be badly missed now. City, once so focused in their spending, have started to make mistakes. Tijjani Reijnders, brought in last summer for £50m, is about to be shipped on. Rayan Aït-Nouri was a baffling signing when he arrived and nothing in the past year has changed that view.
Maresca must have looked at Arsenal’s squad, the extraordinary options available to Mikel Arteta in midfield, and despaired. Put generously, his is a squad in transition, although it’s starting to look as though it may be a squad in decline. The sense over the past couple of years was of Guardiola, slowly, passing his peak, but in retrospect perhaps it was only his genius that kept an ailing City competitive.
The evidence of Sunday, with all due caveats about the stage of the season, is that this may be a very bad time for Maresca to have replaced Guardiola. Taking over from a legend would be extremely challenging in the best of circumstances, and these are starting to look like they may be very bad circumstances.
