Forget Pep Guardiola, this mess is on Man City’s players. They MUST do that to stop the rot, writes GRAEME SOUNESS

The stress of managing Manchester City of late was etched all over Pep Guardiola’s face after their midweek capitulation against Feyenoord.

After all, it is a new experience for him. He is a man of great detail, a serial winner, he will question himself and search for the answers. We are talking about stress in management. I kicked bottles over, hit walls, I smashed a television in the dressing room at Dunfermline. I acted like a child, lost control of all emotions, and what did the players learn from that? Nothing.

It’s not about what Pep does, it’s about his players and what they do to regain belief.

When I played for Liverpool in 1981, we lost 3-1 to Manchester City at Anfield on Boxing Day. That left us in 12th place in the league, nine points behind the leaders. The headlines were all about ‘End of the Empire’, ‘The Empire is crumbling’.

It hurt because in Liverpool you were constantly reminded of the great players who had gone before and the dynasty they had created.

A few days before our next game, an FA Cup tie at Swansea, Joe Fagan, Bob Paisley’s assistant at the time, took us outside to Melwood, Liverpool’s training ground. I remember the exact spot there was supposed to be a bloody memorial there, right on the edge of the A team pitch.

And Joe said, ‘That’s right, you rascals, that’s it. We have said all we can. Now it’s over to you. I suggest you take yourselves to a night out and sort it out amongst yourselves.’

Like all footballers back then, we didn’t need much encouragement to have a drink – but it did give us the opportunity to lay it all out on the table about what we thought we did wrong, air our grievances and have a proper talk with each other.

We knew we had to find that extra yard, that extra belief, that extra aggression. It was also about being brave and wanting to be on the ball when the game wasn’t going our way and not hiding.

We regrouped and we went on a great run, losing just twice in 25 games to go on and win the league title. Bob would later say it was the hardest to win.

For Manchester City now it is about regaining that faith, that confidence. It should be there in spades on their recent history of winning trophies and Pep will be looking for the leaders in the group to have the conversations we Liverpool players had and drag them through this quagmire. It is entirely up to them.

Pep has been so successful with this group that it’s not about starting to do things differently or talking to them in a different way. It is not broken. These players must now stand up and be counted.

We’ve heard scathing remarks about the age of the City squad affecting intensity, and many are 29, even 30. That’s not the issue here. Diets are better, fitness is better, places are better, travel is better. Everything in the modern game is geared towards longevity. When I was playing, I had my best season at 31, my last at Liverpool. It has nothing to do with age.

I must have had this said to me by other players 10 or more times since I stopped playing: ‘When we played you, it looked like you were a team of men.’

And looking back, the core of our team was mid to late 20s. People who had been through the mill with great experience.

For many of these City players, this is a new experience: not looking forward to going to work every day, not having the same spring in your step, the usual camaraderie or banter. There will be some pointing fingers to blame. But now is not the time for that, now is the time to look in the mirror and ask yourself, not the guy sitting next to them in the locker room.

That’s what Pep needs to see now. He wants the right men to lead from the front because he has now said all he can say. That’s what champions do.

Salah’s contract stand-off

When Mohamed Salah says he has yet to ‘receive an offer’ from Liverpool, it would be naive to consider it anything more than a play on words.

Liverpool and his representatives have spoken about a new contract and negotiations are underway. I can’t believe anyone thinks otherwise. Both Liverpool and the player need to know where they stand as he could, after all, sign a pre-contract with a foreign side in little more than a month.

Liverpool have for the last decade been as good as anyone in their recruitment, which I always say is the most important thing for any football club to get right. They are constantly looking to improve on what they have and it will take some for the excellent group they have right now.

But nothing has changed in Liverpool. When I returned as manager, I had a conversation with Tom Saunders, who had been right-hand man to Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish.

Looking through the small office window with a metal grill on the outside as my players ran past at Melwood, Tom told a story. When Bob was a manager, he would often say, looking through the same window, “I’m not happy with him”, then… “I think we can do better in that position”, then… “I think he cares about…’ and these were comments about a team that won a league title or the European Cup every year.

So they were never quite happy with the group they had and that was a big part of Liverpool’s success over the decades.

Still, at 32, Salah is in good shape. He is better now than the day he walked through the doors at Anfield just over seven years ago. He has proven his worth in the pantheon of Liverpool greats.

Some Liverpool fans would now put him in their greatest ever XI, and that is no easy statement when you consider the greats who have gone before. He’s cute the way he rides challenges, rarely gets injured and is at the peak of his powers. There are many ways to make a deal work, and this is one they have to find.

When Arne Slot took over at Liverpool, I said in this column that the biggest job ahead of him was not recruiting new players, but getting Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold to sign new contracts. That’s how it proves.

If it’s a football decision, where do you go for Liverpool? Possibly Real Madrid, but nowhere else.

If I were a betting man, I’d say Salah and Van Dijk will still be Liverpool players this summer, but perhaps Alexander-Arnold, with his obvious relationship with Jude Bellingham and Real Madrid right-back Dani Carvajal, was 33 in January and is recovering. a serious knee injury, will be the one to depart.

If that works out, then Liverpool have, to quote a politician or two, a hot young full-back in Conor Bradley. As Kylian Mbappe can now testify, he is full of energy, full of quality and destined to be a star.

Keane’s confrontation

Have I ever been abused by a football fan while doing TV pundits? Of course I have. That’s why I was a little surprised to see Roy Keane react the way he did to comments from a fan at Ipswich Town last week.

We live in a society where it is considered acceptable to shout abuse at people in a football stadium. That’s how it’s always been. I have been in football for over 50 years and if anything it is now even more acceptable, they put it down as ‘teasing’.

At times, alcohol may be involved, and combined with a safe distance, some of these characters assume a bravado where they believe they can shout whatever they want.

Personally, I’ve always seen it as ‘that’s the price of the ticket’. It happened to me most weeks and I always took the ‘sticks and stones’ attitude. It never changes.

Roy gives an honest opinion. If you don’t give it, you won’t be asked back the following week, that’s the nature of the business. He has his own style that often grabs the headlines and sometimes that means you can’t always be nice to the people you’re talking about.

It can stick with the supporters and they will remember it the next time you are back at the stadium.

Roy is long enough in the tooth to know all that. He has been a player, a manager and now an expert. I can’t speak for him as to why he reacted the way he did.

But what I can tell you is that I like Roy and I enjoy working with him. He is not what you would first think as he is very humorous, not short on one man and mischievous. That doesn’t excuse people yelling slurs, but I doubt that will ever change.