Alan Shearer Exclusive: Man City are in crisis without irreplaceable Rodri | OneFootball

Alan Shearer

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In his latest exclusive for Betfair, Alan Shearer discusses the crisis at Manchester City, gives his thoughts on the Mo Salah situation at Liverpool, and tells us why Newcastle must keep their star striker and bring in more new players...

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Man City are in crisis

This run of form is the worst Pep Guardiola has been through. We've been used to them blowing teams away for years and if they were to have a bad result, they'd get it right next time out and be back to normal, but this is different.

Obviously, they're missing players that are injured. Having said that, 98% of the Premier League would still like the players that are available to them and when you look at their back four in their last game, they had Rico Lewis, Gvardiol, Akanji, Ake and the best goalkeeper in the world.

They have the best centre-forward in the world, in midfield they've got Bernardo Silva, Gundogan, Phil Foden, so the talent that is available is incredible.

Man City have a crisis on their hands, there's no doubt about it and they're frail. There's definitely a vulnerability about them and you could see that against Feyenoord.

That encapsulated what's happening to City. They were cruising with 15 minutes to go, gave a goal away and all of a sudden you see them collapse, which we've never seen before.

The first goal was an error so you invite pressure. It was a crazy error by Gvardiol, who had a really tough time at the weekend against Spurs.

At three-nil up, I was thinking that it would be time to prepare for Liverpool - and so did Pep with the substitutions that he made. It backfired and they deservedly got punished because they're giving far too many chances away to the opposition.

For 75 minutes they were in cruise control. It wasn't a great performance in the first half, but they got the goal just before half-time and there was no doubt that settled everyone down and for 30 minutes in the second half it was just a matter of how many they were going to get but once they conceded that first goal, the alarm bells went off.

Their confidence is at zero and for a team that has so many experienced players in it, when you're 3-2 up with barely two minutes to go on the clock, for them to take a quick free-kick, for me you're thinking 'come on!'

Normally you'd see a team under the cosh that have been there, seen it and done it for years, kill the game. Take your time, let's just get out of here at 3-2 and we'll pick the bones out of what's gone wrong with the two goals that went wrong, but they wanted to take a quick free-kick and it was just like 'goodness me, with the form you're in...Why?'

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

But when you're under huge pressure and treading water as they were then your brain doesn't work properly and it certainly didn't then.

City are struggling without Rodri

It feels different now with Man City, simply because of how open they are and they've now conceded 17 goals in six games which is very, very alarming.

They won't replace Rodri in terms of ability-wise because he is the best player in the world in his position, so they have to get over that and Pep's one of the best, if not the best coach we've ever seen so he has to find a way to get by without him and at the minute it doesn't seem as if they can do that.

I know they've got Ruben Diaz to come back into defence as well - whether he makes Sunday's game or not remains to be seen, but this run does feel very different to anything we've seen with Man City.

They've still got one of the best goalkeepers in the world, you've got the best centre-forward in the world, the best young player in the Premier League as voted in Phil Foden, Bernardo Silva, Jack Grealish... and they've still got players and defenders that they paid £60million for, you know... you won't get much sympathy from the opposition, particularly when you've spent what you have done and you can still put out the team that's there.

There's no doubt Man City are going through a horrific period and suffering from a crisis in confidence which can happen to anyone, and it's certainly happened to City over the past five or six weeks.

Pep Guardiola signed his new contract a week ago which should've been a huge confidence boost for everyone, particularly with what's going on with the charges.

I thought it would've been a huge lift to everyone with the message it sends out to the fans, players that they may or may not sign, that Pep is there for the long-haul. He could also say that to his players in the dressing room - 'look, whatever happens, I'm here for you'

They have issues with Kevin De Bruyne's contract, but I don't see anything other than a crisis in confidence, and missing one or two players, but defensively they're all over the place at the minute. They're dreadful and they look really lightweight in midfield. It's not just individually, collectively they're wide open.

Erling Haaland will take positives from his recent performances

The positive thing is that, despite Man City's results, they're still creating chances.

Before Spurs scored last weekend, Erling Haaland missed three big chances and they still had numerous chances against Sporting.

If you want to look at the bigger picture, he has 17 in 17 games for his Club.

The doom and gloom'ers will say he's got two in his last seven Premier League matches, but I, as a centre-forward, would say I've got 17 in 17 and that's the mentality that you have to have.

You've got to try and take positives albeit in a very, very difficult situation at the moment.

Haaland has proved that he's human and normal. When you set a ridiculously high standard as he has, when you fall 5 or 10% below that then people will talk about it and that's fine because that's what we're here to do.

He has to accept that because of who and what he is. He is the best and he got another two goals in the Champions League which will remind everyone of that. It'll be a fascinating game at the weekend, it really will.

I don't have a problem with Mo Salah's comments, he has to look after himself

There's no doubt Mo Salah was told to say what he said at the weekend by his agent to try and put pressure on the football club.

It was noticeable he said he 'hadn't been offered a contract.' He didn't say that talks hadn't been going on. They're two separate things, I think.

He was looking after himself and his agent was telling him to do that, there's no doubt of that because he very rarely stops in the media zone after games.

I didn't have a problem with what Mo did. When clubs want to get rid of you, they get rid of you and don't have any empathy or sympathy towards you, so he was looking after his situation.

I know Liverpool are going after a title but he's also got to look after himself. Likewise, when the club has to look after itself, they will. It works both ways.

He's a Premier League great there's no doubt. Whatever happens to him, whether he stays or goes, he will be looked upon as an icon of the Premier League.

The number of times he's rescued Liverpool as he did at the weekend again. When you've got him in your team, you've always got a chance.

It's clear that Salah won't slow down. The player and club will have to look at the situation and whether it becomes more intense as the months go on.

Mentally, when you're in the last three or four months of your contract, do you then start thinking about injuries? Because if you get one, you know what would happen at the end but at the minute, there's no effect whatsoever and Liverpool are flying at the minute with Arne Slot doing a great job.

Slot is right, Salah's situation won't affect the team. You wouldn't be interested in that as another player. He's got his mates in the dressing room and that won't affect them at all.

Alexander Isaak is priceless for Newcastle

There have been reports this week that Newcastle would be willing to take £115m for Alexander Isaak in January. For me, it's a no. Unless they have a like-for-like, world class replacement ready to come in then it would be crazy to sell him in January and I don't think they will. It's not a viable option.

Clearly there's cash available if they were bidding for Marc Guehi but I don't know if that would've meant selling one of the big-hitters in the summer. I don't like the PSR rules and I don't think they're fair or right but that's the situation we're in.

Newcastle are having an up and down season, the international break came at the wrong time because they had a bit of momentum, were getting results and they didn't need the break. They didn't need players flying here, there and everywhere. Clearly that impacted them against West Ham because after 10/15 minutes, they were nowhere near as good as what they have been in the past month.

I'd like to see Newcastle add to their squad

Will we see Newcastle do any business in January? I haven't got a clue. I really don't. I'd like to see someone come in because they need someone, whether it's a right-sided player or another forward because Callum Wilson has been out.

I know he came back against West Ham, but it's about can he stay fit? Probably not because he's had a lot of injuries throughout his career. If they can strengthen in January, I'd like to see that but I don't know the situation behind the scenes.

It doesn't look as if Miguel Almiron's future is at Newcastle. He's not been involved at all really, only as a squad player so that would tell you that he'll possibly be one of the players that they'll be looking to offload.

No one can ever fault his effort at Newcastle. Whenever he's put the shirt on, he's always tried his very best. He had that one season where everything was going in that he was touching but he hasn't been able to rectify that and for where Newcastle want to be, it looks as if he'll be one of the players that they'll sell to bring some money in.