City running out of ideas as Premier League title defence takes its toll

The sight of Roberto Mancini deploying Joleon Lescott in attack as Manchester City lost at Sunderland on Boxing Day has perplexed Ralph Ellis - are the champions losing their invention, style and swagger?

 

They have a squad that cost not far off a billion pounds to assemble. They have four of the biggest name strikers in world football, never mind the Premier League. And yet somehow Manchester City finished their 1-0 defeat at Sunderland with Joleon Lescott playing centre forward.

 

If there is anything which underlined how the reigning Premier League champions have lost their way this season, then it was the sight of Roberto Mancini sending his centre-half upfront in a desperate search for an equaliser. What's next? Put Costel Pantilimon between the sticks and convert Joe Hart into the target man?

 

It seemed like a sign that Mancini was running out of ideas. On the final day of last season, when things were getting desperate against Queen's Park Rangers and nothing he tried produced a goal, he stuck to his principles. When Carlos Tevez didn't produce results he tried Mario Balotelli, and before that he'd sent Edin Dzeko into the fray. The dramatic injury time goal that won the title came with the ball on the floor from start to finish. Barely six months later he's turning instead to Barry Fry's bumper book of basic football tactics.

 

Winning a first title in 44 years was a struggle, and it was always going to be a tough task to follow up on that. For any group of players there's a sense of relief at a triumph and it's not easy to go again after just a few short weeks of summer break. But nobody could have envisaged just how hard City would find this season.

 

At the halfway stage, it isn't only that they are seven points behind Manchester United, they have six less than they had gathered at the same stage a year ago. And they look like a team who are searching for a missing link, unable to understand why what worked last season is now stuttering and stumbling to find any sort of fluency.

 

Chelsea smashed eight goals past Aston Villa on Sunday, but a day earlier City had struggled to put away Reading and needed an injury time effort to do it. They are 1.61 to win at Norwich on Saturday but on current form that's far more inviting to lay than to back.

 

In fact with Rafa Benitez beginning to show signs of solving the Fernando Torres riddle, there may even be an argument for laying City at their current price of 1.46 for a top two finish. The signs from Stamford Bridge are that owner Roman Abramovich is ready to invest again in his squad. Daniel Sturridge may be on the way out to Liverpool, but there's a suggestion that Chelsea might bring in David Villa on loan from Barcelona to take his place.

 

That would provide Torres instantly with a partner he's familiar with, after all they have won European Championships and World Cups together. It would also be somebody to ease his workload - so far Torres has sat out only one game of Chelsea's 31 match season, and that was through suspension.

There are bigger tests of the new Chelsea to come, of course. But Mancini needs to find some answers, and he needs to find them quickly - and they need to be better than simply sending the biggest available body forward with the instruction to "put it in the mixer".

 

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