Pep Guardiola reveals who is to blame for Man City crisis | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola blamed himself for his side's woeful run of form to end 2024.

The reigning Premier League champions in each of the past four seasons have endured a dramatic slide out of the division's elite. It took a nervy, unconvincing 2-0 victory over relegation-scrapping Leicester City to end a two-month wait for an away win.

Even after goals from Savinho and Erling Haaland at the King Power Stadium, City have only claimed two wins from their previous 14 matches across all competitions and head into Saturday's Premier League clash with West Ham United outside the top five.

When reflecting on the worst run of form throughout his illustrious managerial career, Guardiola blamed himself. "The call is on me first," he told assembled media on Friday. "I'm unbelievably honest with myself for the reason why we arrive here and it is me. It's not the players. They naturally drop a little bit and that is normal. It happened a little bit last season as well.

"But with this consistency [of results] I should have found it and that is why we're in this position. I blame [myself]. It's not to say, 'Oh how nice is Pep,' it's the truth. I lead that group of players and I could not lift them. This is the reality."

Pep Guardiola's champions were unconvincing in their victory over Leicester / Michael Regan/GettyImages

The manager, who penned a two-year contract extension after four straight defeats in November, continued: "Why in the past they followed me, they were able to get results? We were the only unbeaten team in Europe and top of the league. Immediately we went down. For injuries, many things we've talked about. But even with that, I should have found a way to get better results. Hopefully we can continue now."

Guardiola has spent much of City's losing run stressing that the team have been playing well in patches only to be undone by misfortune. However, the manager admitted that his side had the rub of the green in the narrow triumph over Leicester.

"We have to recover our game because we were lucky in Leicester," he said. "Spirit and run and desire of course but I know our level because I saw it here in front of my eyes during many, many years and I'm not going to deny myself, the players are not going to deny ourselves the reality.

"It's football, sometimes you know you need a change and something in the mind to recover some aspects and lift the team. This is what I need right now and that's why the victory in Leicester was really really important. I'm not denying that."