Guardiola's team has suffered heavily this year because of the lacklustre finishing. The strategy for City is usually to create as many goal scoring chances early on and then retain the ball whilst tiring out the opposition.
If he has De Bruyne and Silva playing in the centre, that means they usually create chances and overload the flanks, but the downside is that they concede a lot of direct counters through the centre.
If Manchester City don't score first they have a problem because their most creative players Kevin De Bruyne, Silva and Yaya Toure are not athletic enough so they cannot cover a lot of ground so if they are still chasing a goal they have a lot of ground to defend, something they simply are not capable of so it is a big risk and reward situation, Cruijffian in its essence.
He could try a more defesive midfield but like Lord Cruijff he always strives for his teams to be protagonists.
Aguero is a major problem not just because of his lack of scoring when the chances ate created, but because of his hold up play at end his extremely poor decision making. He constantly puts his team under pressure when he has his back to goal. Gabriel Jesus held the ball up better and utilised the third man more, which underpins the whole essence of Guardiolas philosphy. He also makes the wrong pass almost all the time and he gets dispossessed when he tries bulldozing into culdesacs rather than trying passing to an open teammate who can rUn into space. He has to be let go in the summer.
At Barcelona, the players grew up using the basic positional play template that Pep grew up in and espoused. He also had Messi who was arguably the most lethal finisher in the modern era during Guardiola's Barcelona tenure and so they converted their chances when he was involved.
When they went through a lean spell of scoring in the second half of the 2010/11 season with Pedro and David Villa misfiring constantly, they still ceded less chances because he had the greatest controller in footballs history in the form of Xavi Hernandez, who is the most press resistant and best ball retainer the game has probably ever seen.
Having Gundogan in the team would have eliminated a few prolems as he is more press resistant and more mobile than De Bruyne and he doesn't need to operate in the half space to be ands effective meaning that he can occupy central zones when Manchester City are in their defensive phase.
Mbappe could could be a viable option as he has the pace, youth and seems to be very good in the box and he is flexible.
Centrally, ideally the perfect player for Guardiola in the premiership would be a press resistant midfielder that is great at winning second balls and can cover a lot of ground. A player fitting that profile doesn't exist to my knowledge. Thiago would have been a great purchase but he will renew at Bayern Munchen. Another good option could be Paeredes from Roma who and Carvalho from Sporting.
The full backs also need to be upgraded as they too cannot cover the space required if City are to carry on playing their high risk football.
With regards to his strategy, the team also doesn't have very tall players or players that are good aerially which means that they must execute their plan very well and can't rely on set pieces. Now more than ever, Guardiola is going to have to even follow the Cruijffian ideal and his position game with even more conviction than ever. It is better to die by your own sword than someone else's.
Dont make judgements based the octobor fixture, just yet. We only struggle to score goals against bus parking teams but win the midfield and defense while city leak goals and the midfield control is also not so much there. If we attack their leaky defense we have a chance of scoring but we can manage not to conceed under Mourinho.
