A sell-out John Smith’s Stadium should expect a classic FA Cup encounter of David vs Goliath proportions when Huddersfield Town face Manchester City this weekend.

While the pressure is off the high-flying SkyBet Championship side, it is very much on Pep Guardiola and his Premier League giants.

An FA Cup exit to lower-league opposition may not only be another statistic in the annals of upsets in the oldest cup competition, but could effectively end Manchester City’s season.

Although City have a winnable two-legged last-16 Champions League clash against AS Monaco, given their current defensive frailties, their chances of progressing further in the competition seem slim.

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Having won domestic titles in his first season as a manager in both Spain and Germany, it is looking increasing unlikely Guardiola will repeat the trick in England with The Blues currently eight points behind Premier League leaders Chelsea.

This is a side who have recorded only six clean sheets in the Premier League, went on a six-game winless streak in October and experienced heavy defeats away to Leicester City and Everton.

Fans will cite the club’s proud history of making the impossible possible, and will point to being unbeaten in the last five since their 4-0 Goodison Park mauling.

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But City’s patchy form has already seen five league defeats to date and, with any would-be title contender rarely losing more than that, would virtually need to maintain an unbeaten run to the end of the season.

The problem for Guardiola, who was able to hit the ground running at Barcelona and Bayern Munich with squads in peak condition and age, is that he has inherited a City side where 12 of the first-team are over 30-years old.

The latter would have been no surprise to the Spaniard who was officially unveiled as Manchester City’s boss in early February last year, with the deal made as early as December when he announced he was leaving his role at Bayern Munich.

Yet, despite having had months to forward plan and formulate a coherent 2016 summer transfer strategy, why has Guardiola appeared inept at dealing with this underlying issue?

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Arguably it is impossible to rectify everything in one season and make wholesale changes to a squad, with Guardiola perhaps wanting to assess each player over a course of a full-season before moving forward.

Yet the big-money signings of John Stones, Nolito and Claudio Bravo have struggled to make an impact while Joe Hart, a fundamental member of City’s backbone for over a decade, was barely given a backward glance as he was jettisoned off to Torino on a season-long loan.

Guardiola cited Hart’s inability to play from the back as the reason for the England goalkeeper’s departure but his immediate replacement, £15.25m Barcelona stopper Bravo, has been so calamitous he has since been dropped for City’s reserve stopper Willy Caballero.

Bravo’s inability at undertaking the simple basics of English football has mirrored his manager’s problems in understanding the British game – and made Guardiola appear somewhat less than a managerial Messiah in his first six months at the club.

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After such an impressive trophy-laden CV, Guardiola can be forgiven for a touch of arrogance and naivety as he walked into the Etihad for the first time, but he has been given a reality check over the months that have followed.

Guardiola needs to be more pragmatic in his own approach as well as that of his team to realise a damage-limitation season would be Champions League qualification and winning the FA Cup.

After all, predecessors Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini were both able to win some form of silverware in their first season at the club....the pressure is on.