Su Dong Dependency Syndrome

On the evening of January 13, at Manchester's Etihad Stadium.

In the thirteenth round of the Premier League, Man City hosted Birmingham.

In the seventieth minute, Guardiola once again replaced Santa Cruz with Su Dong.

While Su Dong was injured, Santa Cruz had started two consecutive matches, but he had failed to display the ability expected of a starting center forward for a team aiming to challenge for the Premier League title. This left Guardiola—and everyone at Man City—very dissatisfied with him.

Santa Cruz certainly had ability, but if he could not show it with this Man City side, then it meant nothing. As a result, almost everyone in the squad concluded that Man City would make signings during the Winter Break, and Santa Cruz would very likely become a makeweight in a transfer and be sent away.

It was clear that the Paraguayan center forward genuinely wanted to prove his ability in front of the home fans, but unfortunately, he never produced a satisfactory performance from beginning to end.

In the seventieth minute, when he once again walked to the sideline and politely embraced Su Dong, his expression was extremely ugly.

Even he probably knew that his journey with Man City was basically over.

Of course, that might not necessarily be a bad thing for him.

Sometimes, some things were truly strange.

When Santa Cruz was on the pitch, Birmingham's midfield and defense had looked extremely solid, giving the Paraguayan center forward no opportunities at all.

But after Santa Cruz came off and Su Dong came on as a substitute, Birmingham's defenders voluntarily handed over a gift just seven minutes later.

Barry Ferguson—judging from the name alone, it was obvious that he had absolutely nothing to do with Ferguson, nor was he related to Gareth Barry—but that name