Outcast wrote:P.s we might go unbeaten this season.
I'm glad you said that ....I'll bump it after every game until we lose
here's Raggy Sam - I'll put the rest of the photos in later if I have time and somebody asks for them....
Haaland and Foden show what can happen when a top team are free to do what they want
Erling Haaland and Phil Foden of Manchester City interact following the Premier League match between Manchester City and Manchester United at Etihad Stadium on October 02, 2022 in Manchester, England.
By Sam Lee
Oct 2, 2022
Whenever Pep Guardiola talks about “space to let them run”, he’s normally lamenting the opposition’s transitions, but Manchester City’s ruthless exploitation of the gaps in Manchester United’s midfield was the story of this chaotic derby, and perhaps of their evolution as a team.
And, clearly, it’s not all about Erling Haaland, who handed over his hat-trick match ball to Phil Foden, who also scored three on Sunday. In the end, they both walked off with one.
Guardiola said his City side have “a new weapon” in summer signing Haaland’s ability and willingness to run in behind and his arrival is surely the catalyst for this change, but the back-to-back Premier League champions have many strings to their bow and are now a fearsome prospect whenever they themselves are given space to run.
How they were given it by visitors United — and how they made it count.
Foden was another to take full advantage of all the open grass at the Etihad, but he and Haaland were backed up superbly by Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish.
City don’t get to play like this often, of course, as teams prefer to sit back and deny them these spaces. So given a rare opportunity to use them, they were not going to miss out.
The derby-day emotions were a little soured by United’s two late goals but the devastation wrought by City’s four principal forwards simply cannot be dampened, and the threat they pose will be evident again and again as the season goes on.
There are ways of analysing the more technical aspects of how City provoked and then exploited spaces in United’s setup, but this article will focus on the more crash-bang-wallop effect of really good footballers running fast and scoring lots of goals.
And, in fairness, a lot of other things. Like intelligent movement and, basically, demanding the ball all the time.
Look where Foden starts here — on City’s right and in possession.
His time on the ball ends and he keeps moving into a central area, evading the attention of the United players.
He wants the ball here…
… here (he’s just goalside of, and almost obscured by, Christian Eriksen, United’s No 14)…
… and certainly here, as Eriksen’s fleeting interest in tracking him evaporates.
And what follows is a textbook Foden finish. He is a master at manoeuvring his body to convert when the ball is right under his feet in a position slightly outside of the goalframe.
After all, he did it against Wolves in City’s previous match on September 17…
… and against Chelsea a couple of seasons ago, in an almost exact copy of his first today.
There is nothing especially noteworthy about Haaland’s first goal, other than it came when City had just rampaged through United again and Raphael Varane had been injured blocking a shot.
With the Frenchman off the pitch getting treatment, United’s aerial presence was basically wiped out. Unfortunately for them, City had a corner, and Haaland towered over three players to head in, running off Eriksen and outjumping Scott McTominay.
His second of the day was classic Haaland and a classic City Haaland goal.
Look at how the move starts, with Grealish found in acres of space. The former Aston Villa man loved driving into those open spaces United offered, but on the day did not have the finishing touch of his fellow forwards.
His use of the ball was good, though, and when he found De Bruyne here it was essentially already 3-0.
The Belgian weighed up what was around him and knew where Haaland would be going. Look at the Norwegian here: as soon as the danger is live, he moves to Varane’s blind side.
The rest is just De Bruyne picking the perfect pass — for his eighth league assist in as many appearances this season — and Haaland doing what he does. De Bruyne’s chance creation has differed over recent seasons, with crosses from the right fading from his armoury, but he needs them again now City are playing with a true No 9 and he clearly still knows how to produce them.
City’s fourth goal had elements of the third. De Bruyne again features, with a trademark strong run that Eriksen tries to curtail with a trip but simply can’t.
Rather than carry the ball 50 yards, like he often does, the Belgian released Haaland, who curved his run around Victor Lindelof.
The big striker doesn’t look entirely comfortable when in crossing positions but you wouldn’t know it here: his low delivery is as good as anything De Bruyne might serve up…
… and local lad Foden made sure he was there to tuck it away.
As The Athletic highlighted after City’s win against Sevilla in the Champions League opener on September 6, Haaland is scoring an incredible amount of goals with one touch because his movement and finishing are of the highest level — and so is the way City create chances.
He now has hat-tricks in three consecutive home league games, the first time anybody has done that in the Premier League era — and look at where they were all scored from.
His hat-trick goal today was another classic first-time finish after an astute City move.
Grealish carries it forward and finds De Bruyne. Despite being central and theoretically in a position to take a shot himself or find Haaland, De Bruyne knows Sergio Gomez (bottom left) will be on the overlap.
Earlier, Grealish was the man central and found Gomez outside, only for the Spaniard’s low cross to be blocked.
Not this time.
Haaland doesn’t make any huge movement, he just checks back towards the penalty spot, buying himself a yard of space, as Gomez releases the ball and, sure enough, it finds him.
Foden’s hat-trick goal, City’s sixth, is an example of so many things, although it was a touch messier in the build-up than the others.
Look at Grealish pointing (the City player furthest right in the image below). He wants the ball to go to Foden, but Haaland gets in the way after both players make very similar runs, to the extent that the move seems to lose steam.
But how about this — the three United defenders are all drawn to Haaland as they are so worried about what he might do, but none of them is close enough to do anything about it. So Foden is onside, just waiting behind them, and again demanding the ball.
Haaland plays the right pass under belated pressure from Fred, and Foden, who will for sure have thought about the fact he was on a hat-trick, takes a split-second to settle himself and then simply strokes the ball past David de Gea.
The stats from the game paint the picture of individual and collective dominance.
Haaland’s three hat-tricks in a row, for one, but also that he has reached that milestone in just eight league games, beating the previous record of 48 set by Michael Owen by more than a season’s worth of league matches. He’s already scored as many Premier League hat-tricks as Cristiano Ronaldo has in his 232 appearances.
Foden scored his 49th, 50th and 51st goals for City, in the process becoming the youngest player to reach 50 goals under Guardiola, surpassing Lionel Messi by 37 days.
As much as this was — particularly the first half — a derby humiliation for United, it was also a demonstration of pitch-perfect technical execution by City.
If the City versus Liverpool games of the past year or so have shown us what happens when two top teams go toe-to-toe, City versus United ones have begun to show what happens when one top team is allowed to do exactly what they want to.
by sheblue » Sun Oct 02, 2022 9:34 pm 
Watch on youtube.com
