Five Things Learned: Manchester City 3-4 Celtic (Pre-Season Friendly)

Manchester City looked largely slow and disorganised in their first pre-season match of the season in a 3-4 defeat against Scottish Premier League champions Celtic.

Pep Guardiola and his coaching staff were forced to start a disjointed opening eleven full of mostly youth players due to a large share of the senior first-team squad not traveling to the United States after this summer’s international competitions.

Celtic took full advantage of the mishmash of players, and after just 13 minutes Nicolas-Gerrit Kühn found himself in behind with acres of space and calmly beat Stefan Ortega Moreno to finish inside the far post.

It was a sloppy first-half for the Sky Blues, but they were able to briefly tie the game at 1-1 when Oscar Bobb’s shot from the edge of the box could not be controlled by Kasper Schmeichel, and bounced into the back of the net in the 33rd minute.

However, Celtic continued to take advantage of the lack of cohesion in their opponent’s squad and easily broke through to grab two more goals before the end of the first-half. Kühn grabbed his second of the game in the 36th minute, and Kyogo Furuhashi rounded Ortega for a tap in just before half-time.

After an understandably rusty first-half performance, Pep Guardiola elected to bring on Ederson, Callum Doyle, Maximo Perrone, Mahamadou Susoho and Joel Ndala for Stefan Ortega, Luke Mbete, Kalvin Phillips, Nico O’Reilly and James McAtee.

With a slew of fresh faces on the pitch, City came alive. Maximo Perrone scored to make it 2-3 in the 46th minute when Oscar Bobb split a pair of defenders to set-up the Argentine. It was a wonderful goal set-up by the Norwegian winger, who carried the ball from the halfway line and into the box.

The Sky Blues equalised in the 57th minute when Erling Haaland found the back of the net from a close range header. The goal was set-up by Oscar Bobb once again, who lofted a cross in from the left by-line.

However, Celtic able to respond themselves. Following another slew of substitutions, the Scottish side found themselves in behind Manchester City’s defence and Kwon Hyeok-Kyu found Luis Palma at the far post for a tap-in for the winner.

Manchester City were unable to respond to Celtic’s fourth goal, and lost their first match of the summer pre-season tour. The Premier League champions will now travel to New York City this weekend to take face AC Milan on Saturday July 27th at 11PM BST.

Here are the Five Things We Learned from Manchester City’s defeat to Celtic!

Oscar Bobb is taking his chance to shine

Manchester City have a history of starting slow, and this year is likely to be no different. Oscar Bobb however has a golden opportunity to shine with most of the squad needing extra rest from summer international tournaments.

The Norwegian international was directly responsible for all three Manchester City goals against Celtic, and will look to continue to shine throughout the rest of the pre-season tour. Let’s just hope it translates to minutes during matches that count.

Maximo Perrone is fighting for a spot in the squad

The 21-year-old Argentine midfielder made an instant impact with a great finish to try and claw Manchester City back into the match, and followed it up by completing all 15 of his passes in the second-half.

Yes, it is a pre-season friendly fixture against a significantly inferior side during a domestic competitive season, but Pep Guardiola has almost always rewarded good performances in pre-season. 

Midfield depth is a bit of a question mark, but Maximo Perrone appears to be a much better fit than Matheus Nunes, despite costing the club significantly less when he was recruited from Velez Sarsfield in January 2023.

However, it remains to be seen what other players are brought into the Manchester City midfield this summer, and unfortunately a big summer signing could once again knock Maximo Perrone out of the pecking order.

The Kalvin Phillips experience will be hopefully over soon

After a rollercoaster season that saw him struggle to regain form when on loan at West Ham United, the former Leeds midfielder continued to look far from the standard required to feature consistently in Pep Guardiola’s side during the meeting with Celtic.

Phillips appeared to be a perfect squad player when he was first signed two seasons ago, yet it appears Manchester City might struggle to even find a team for him at this rate, and could have to settle for a second successive loan agreement. 

With another temporary deal potentially on the cards for the 28-year-old midfielder, it just depends on if another squad will view him and decide he is worth taking on some of his wages in exchange for potentially lacklustre performances.

The Ederson rumours are confirmed to be true

Pep Guardiola admitted that he is not sure whether Ederson will stay at Manchester City this summer, telling reporters after the meeting with Celtic that “he has to make a decision” in regards to his future.

However, the Catalan’s comments appeared to indicate that there has not been any recent contact between clubs in Saudi Arabia and Manchester City, amid growing reports of interest from Al-Ittihad.

While Ederson has sometimes drawn the ire of Manchester City fans during his career, he remains one of the most unique players in Pep Guardiola’s squad and finding a replacement with even a remotely similar distribution ability will prove to be quite the task.

This might be a rough pre-season

There are seven senior players in the Manchester City squad for the summer pre-season tour, and eight if you want to count Oscar Bobb. Aside from Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland, three of them are goalkeepers, with Kalvin Phillips and Maximo Perrone joining them.

That leaves only two outfield players who had significant minutes last season. With matches against AC Milan, Barcelona and Chelsea on the horizon, it might be a rough stretch of games for the Sky Blues. 

If that isn’t enough, the FA Community Shield against Manchester United is less than three weeks away. While City have made it a habit of losing the Community Shield as of late, this pre-season is even more worrying than usual.