Manchester City in trouble? The club even risks relegation

Manchester, 10 December 2024 – It is certainly not the best time for the Manchester City di Pep Guardiola, which since November has collected just 4 points in the championship against one win, one draw and four defeats. Even in Champions The citizens are not doing so well, as demonstrated by the draw they suffered in a comeback, from 3-0 to 3-3, against Feyenoord at home and the bad away defeat against Sporting for 4-1 on November 5th. All this has caused Guardiola's men to plummet in the standings both in the Premier League and in the top European competition. As for the championship, Manchester City are in fourth place in the standings at a sideral distance of 8 points from Liverpool, who also have one game less, while in the super scoreboard of the new Champions League, the citizens are in seventeenth place with 8 points, equal with Juventus, PSV Eindhoven e Celtic. Sure, eighth place (the last one that allows direct qualification to the round of 16) is only two points away, but nobody at the start of the year would have expected to see Manchester City in such difficulty.

Tomorrow night, Guardiola and his men will face Juventus at the Allianz Stadium, but the eve risks being ruined by another piece of news that is far from positive. In these hours, in fact, the hearing involving Manchester City has concluded regarding the 115 violations of English Financial Fair Play. In detail, there were 80 violations of the financial rules between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons and another 35 for not having collaborated with the Premier League for an investigation between December 2018 and February 2023. The accusations were reported in 2023, following the publication of some Football Leaks documents by the German newspaper Ter Spiegel. Obviously, the Manchester club firmly denies any type of wrongdoing, and the final sentence will only arrive in 2025. The risks for Manchester City are various: they range from a possible penalty in the standings to relegation to Championship, but only in the coming months will the truth be discovered. The process will be long: both parties, in fact, can appeal following the first sentence, which is why it is very likely that a final judgment will be made at the end of this season, if not at the beginning of the next. In any case, Manchester City is at great risk, and Guardiola will have to be good, over the next few months, at keeping his players focused on the various competitions, starting with tomorrow's match against Juventus.