Ian Cheeseman: Forever Blue

Dare I suggest that Manchester City’s achilles heel has been exposed during their last two games?

Their perfect football was unsettled by aggressive pressing play from a deep lying defence, coupled with speedy incisive counter attacking. At Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup, Pep Guardiola’s team completely dominated the first half which ended scoreless.

As usual, they had about 80% of the possession, with precision passing and great movement. That is the pattern of almost every game they’ve played during the last eighteen months or so. Most of the teams they face, either domestically or in Europe, are overwhelmed and eventually City’s superior quality breaks them down and City win.

When the teams came out for the second half at Newcastle, the Magpies brought on two senior players, who’d obviously been reminded, by their manager Eddie Howe, that the Blues boss had told the press, ahead of the game, that he didn’t want to take any risks at St.James’ Park. Both managers, mindful of the fixture congestion of Champions League, Premier League and Carabao Cup games every three days, didn’t want to overplay their key players.

Howe risked Guimaraes and Gordon from the start of the second period and instructed his players to be more aggressive. City’s young team looked intimidated and within eight minutes Newcastle had bullied their way into the lead. They kept up the intensity until the end and City didn’t have the will to fight.

I’d assumed, like most City fans, that once the Blues returned to Premier League action at Wolves, they’d not only be back to full strength but also back to giving their all in the fight. I’d suggest that the Wolves manager, Gary O’Neil, had witnessed City’s weak capitulation at Newcastle and told his players not to be intimidated by the fact that City won the treble last season and had won all their Premier League games so far and simply “get stuck into them”, as we used to say in the old days.

City have wonderful players and I think most people would agree that man for man they are far superior that what Wolves currently have at their disposal. They’d even sold one of their key players from last season, Matheus Nunes, to City during the summer. What the Wanderers showed at the weekend was that they had more fight in them. Put simply, just like Newcastle in the second half last week, they wanted it more.

I guess another factor that I believe played a part in City’s slips, is that they had a bigger proportion of younger, less experienced and frankly smaller players on show in both those games. I feel certain that with the suspended Rodri in midfield, plus injury absentees Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and John Stones, the outcome may well have been very different but every team has to deal with injuries and suspensions, it’s just part of the game.

City failed to score at Newcastle and their goal at Wolves was a freekick from Julian Alvarez. In both performances City created less clear chances than normal. Some will argue that both of their opponents defended deeply and that was the reason. Most clubs have done that in

recent times and City have always found a way. During the last week, Erling Haaland, who didn’t play at Newcastle but played the full 90 minutes at Wolves, didn’t have a meaningful shot on target. The creativity of De Bruyne, Silva and the departed Gundogan and Mahrez were missing.

These were early season setbacks and were certainly not fatal losses in City’s attempt to defend their treble, but they need to match their opponents in their will to win to earn the right to allow their (usually) superior players to win the game.

I’ll report on Wednesday’s trip to Leipzig next week, but Saturday’s trip to Arsenal now promises to be an even more feisty affair. It’s great to be a Blue!