Glimpse into Pep’s mind before the season finale!

This is a man who lives for the pressure situations and big occasions. Infact, greater the pressure of the situation, higher is his passion and intensity. What surprises me the most about Pep is his ability to be unfazed when things are not going according to plan. It looks like Pep would have to utilize all of his pressure absorbing character in this final lap of the season. The scenarios for City look daunting and scary. The big problem is that we are competing with a Liverpool team having momentum and they are rolling over one opposition after the other. In stark contrast, we have lost momentum over the last couple of weeks and every game seems like a nail biting thriller that would somehow go wrong.

I know that the Crystal Palace draw is still hurting all of us, but i am very sure that it must have hurt Pep even more than we can ever imagine. That draw was a significant momentum changing signal in the season. We played exceptionally well, but the ball Just did not go into the net. The problem here for Pep is that he can not afford to have an other game like that and almost all the teams in our final run-in are park the bus teams.

Yes, we won the title in a similar fashion in that 2018-19 season, but we had a certain great called as Sergio Aguero that season. I still remember, Aguero toe-poked a goal against a rigid Burnley to win a tight game 1-0 that season. It is those sort of striker instinct goals that Pep will be worried about in that final run in.

Pep would surely be thinking about the players who can make those late runs into the box and get into those goal scoring positions in tight games like the Crystal Palace tie. There are only two players in Sterling and Gundogan that fit into players having that sense of goal and striker like instincts. But, the nightmares for Pep don’t seem to end.

The finishing of Sterling will be a huge concern, specially given his track record of missing big goals in super important games. But, i do think that Pep does not have an other option in breaking low blocks. You need a player who can run in behind the defense to change the rythm of play, which we missed aginst Palace. So, Pep will have Sterling and his nightmare finishing as the most important ingridients of his receipe for the season’s final dinner.

The biggest worry for Pep will be the clinicalness of our attacking players. He would know very well that the big trophies can only be won by putting the ball in the back of the net. This might just be Pep’s toughest assignment, just for the reason that we do not have clinical finishers and the opposition chasing us down has plenty of them.