Marc Guehi is a superb signing - but can England defender alone save 'embarrassing' Man City's season from spiralling out of control?

Guehi used the words "total domination" to describe City over the last decade, but the phrase 'total disaster' would be more apt for how they have begun 2026. City have lost two and drawn three of their seven games since the start of January, with their only victories coming in the domestic cups. 

Saturday's limp defeat to Manchester United was met with utter despair by supporters, but things got even worse in the north of Norway as City were deservedly beaten 3-1 by a team that had never previously competed in the Champions League proper and had not won any of their previous six games in the competition until Guardiola’s side came to town.

Bodo/Glimt hail from a town with a population smaller than the capacity of the Etihad while their total squad value, according to Transfermarkt, is one quarter of the size of Erling Haaland's value. Their 10 most expensive players of all time cost a combined £23.5 million ($31m); City have spent £85m ($114m)this January alone, while in the last three transfer windows, the English giants have splurged £445m ($597m).

But despite the financial disparity between City and Bodo and the enormous amount the Manchester club have spent on their latest squad rebuild, getting Guehi for £20m ($26.8m) represents an absolute bargain in the current market.

Although City could have signed the England defender for free when his contract with Crystal Palace ran out in June, they were smart to move five months earlier, gazumping other interested clubs like Bayern Munich - who got Harry Kane and Michael Olise to reach out to Guehi to turn his head - and of course Liverpool. 

The Reds were so close to signing Guehi in the summer that he was in a scanning machine at a private hospital and conducting his medical in preparation for the move before Palace called it off on the insistence of Oliver Glasner.

The £20m fee for one of the most coveted defenders in the Premier League, if not Europe, is then a massive coup for City. After all, the club paid roughly £30m each to sign Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis this time last year. Khusanov is likely to partner Guehi on Saturday against Wolves, but Reis has only played three times for the club and is currently on loan at Girona.

Both Khusanov and Reis are exciting prospects, but Guehi is a ready-made defensive leader, the man who captained Palace to FA Cup glory and was England’s most consistent player in their run to the final of Euro 2024.

It is not just in defence where City are lacking leaders, though. Serial winners such as Ederson, Kyle Walker, Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish and Manuel Akanji have all departed in the last year, and Guehi will help towards redressing the balance.

Guehi might feel like a stop-gap signing after Josko Gvardiol and Ruben Dias succumbed to injuries against Chelsea earlier this month, he has been bought with long-term planning in mind. John Stones, who Guehi described as “a big brother”, is set to leave at the end of the season when his own contract expires, and City will be effectively replacing one experienced England international with another.

Guehi also plans on playing at the highest level as long as he can after recently telling BBC Sport that his biggest objective, above trophies, was to keep playing until he is 40.

Guehi’s experience and technical quality is exactly what City need right now after being blown apart by both United and Bodo in the space of four days. In both games, City had to rely upon Khusanov, aged 21 and with 10 Premier League starts to his name, and 20-year-old Max Alleyne, who had only played once in the English top-flight before his Old Trafford baptism of fire. 

Alleyne was exposed on multiple occasions during the derby before being hauled off at half-time, while he made two costly mistakes in the space of two minutes that led to Bodo’s first two goals in Norway. Alleyne also missed a glorious headed opportunity down the other end, the type you would back Guehi to score given his usual threat in the box, which has led to him scoring seven goals for club and country during the last two seasons. 

But while Guehi has the quality and leadership skills to bring some order to City’s ragged defence, his new club have suddenly become beset by problems in all departments, and he will not be able to solve them all.

Haaland has no goals from open play in his last eight matches and seems worn down by both his own workload and the team’s worrying results, which have given fans a sense of deja-vu from last year’s horror season. Phil Foden, meanwhile, has hit another slump in form, with his performances having dipped sharply after Christmas. 

Then there is Rodri, who used to be the main determinant of whether or not City would win. He went 14 months without losing a match for the club - a run which helped him win the 2024 Ballon d'Or - and it was no coincidence that their results spiralled last season not long after a serious knee injury ended his campaign. But the team are actually better off without Rodri this season, according to results. 

City have a 50 percent win rate when Rodri plays, but have won 84.2% of games when he has been unavailable. The Spain international gave the ball away repeatedly against United and was abject throughout his time on the pitch in Norway, losing the ball in the build-up to Bodo scoring their third goal before receiving two bookings in less than a minute to throw away the momentum City had seized when Rayan Cherki pulled one back.

Guardiola cannot be absolved of blame, either. The manager has continued to set the team up in the same way despite injuries making them ever more vulnerable, leaving a three-man defence in possession that is screened only by Rodri. United subsequently sliced through them all too easily, and Bodo did the same.

The huge number of absent players is not helping, with Nico Gonzalez and Matheus Nunes being missed in the last couple of games in addition to the gaping hole in the defence caused by Dias, Gvardiol and Stones' injuries. 

"I don't want to blame anyone, but we need to take more responsibility because in the end it's not good enough,” Haaland said after the Bodo loss. “We're Man City. We can't go around and not win games. I just apologise to everyone; every single Man City supporter and every single supporter that travelled today, because in the end it's embarrassing." 

He wasn’t the only City player to feel guilty about the result and performance as the squad agreed to refund the 374 supporters who made the trip to Norway the full price of their tickets, stumping up almost £10,000 to do so.

It’s a nice gesture that mirrors similar ones taken by clubs such as Arsenal and Everton in the past, but what City fans want to know most of all is whether or not to brace themselves for more horror shows. Guehi should help stem the bleeding, but it will take a lot of self-reflection from his new team-mates for City to recover from their January blues.