Manchester City either rout teams or struggle to create anything at all. Why?
Manchester City are struggling to create (Photo: Getty Images)
By Sam Lee Oct 31, 2021 40
Manchester City have scored six goals on two occasions this season, five goals three times, and four goals once. But they have also failed to score on five occasions.
Why? How?
Pep Guardiola did not have many answers after the defeat by Crystal Palace on Saturday. “I don’t know,” he said. “I would like to know the answer. But I don’t know.”
A common view this season is that City need a striker and that poor finishing has let them down. There is truth in both of those statements and Guardiola himself has admitted that his side lack something without a clinical No 9.
But in certain games this season they have struggled to create many opportunities in the first place, which was the case against Palace on Saturday.
Why does this keep happening? And how does a squad with so many creative players so often struggle in the final third?
Here, The Athletic looks at Manchester City’s five goalless games this season to work out what went wrong and if there are any common themes.
Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Manchester City
Son scored the only goal of the game in north London (Photo: Getty Images)
If there’s an outlier then it’s this result — although the more goalless games that go by, the more it looks like part of a bigger problem. And maybe it is.
There are some caveats. It was the first game of the season and most of the City team had little preparation behind them because no other Premier League club had more international representatives at summer tournaments. That’s why the only mention the Community Shield will get is right here — it doesn’t count.
Raheem Sterling had barely trained, let alone played any friendlies. Benjamin Mendy had a shocker at left-back and that didn’t help Nathan Ake’s cause either.
Spurs were set up to play on the counter-attack and they did their job brilliantly.
The biggest reason that City lost, surely, was the lack of fitness. It is worth noting, though, that they started the game well and did have chances that would have changed things had their finishing been sharper, as the following graphic demonstrates.
City’s chances against Spurs (the bigger the circle, the higher the xG value)
City had three good chances in the opening 15 minutes, including a header that Fernandinho sent wide while under pressure from Hugo Lloris. Joao Cancelo then fired off target after arriving onto a loose ball, with Riyad Mahrez later miscueing from near the penalty spot.
The thing about City lacking a No 9 is that it doesn’t excuse poor finishing by others. On this occasion, City’s lack of sharpness has to be seen as a big reason for the profligacy.
In the second half, City worked a free kick brilliantly to engineer a low cross from the right, but Ferran Torres’ finish lacked conviction.
Opta did not class that as a “big chance” — a situation in which a player should reasonably be expected to score — which does raise a few questions about that statistic, but it is a useful guide.
Manchester City 0-0 Southampton
Southampton frustrated City at The Etihad (Photo: Getty Images)
This was a game when City’s lack of a striker became the main talking point, even though their biggest issue was their difficulty in playing out through Southampton’s press — which was due to Guardiola’s best ball-playing defenders missing out through injury.
Still, with Guardiola unable to fix that with substitutions because there were no suitable solutions in reserve, he turned to some of his most decisive players to make the most of the spaces City were afforded in an open game.
With Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden and Mahrez coming on, it suggested that the presence of a more clinical striker would have made a difference, given the solution to the build-up problem was to bring on players capable of scoring goals.
But, as much as anything, the problem in this game was that City didn’t really create too much in the first place.
Ilkay Gundogan put a tame header over the bar (one of their two Opta-defined big chances) and later on there was another fine low cross from the right but nobody to meet it.
City’s chances against Southampton
The Gundogan chance came after a classic City play: build-up on one side, a quick switch to the other and then a cross.
There were crosses from the left-hand corner of the box to the back post that were not especially threatening (which happened against Palace too), as well as shots from outside the box and some headers from set pieces. Sterling wriggled into the box late on but saw an effort from a narrow angle blocked.
The other big chance was Foden’s header, which was superbly saved, before Sterling was flagged offside as he went for the rebound. That came after a corner was cleared, the ball was recycled and De Bruyne put in a cross from the right-hand side.
“We didn’t have many chances in the first half but we had enough to score,” Guardiola said on the Saturday of the Palace game. A different match, of course, but it goes to show that the manager classifies certain half-chances as ones that should be going in.
City’s big chance creation statistics are at a similar level to last season, overall.
Their goal tally after 10 games of the league season is not especially convincing. Starting from 2016-17, until the present, their record is: 24, 35, 27, 32, 17, 20.
Paris Saint-Germain 2-0 Manchester City
Messi got on the scoresheet in Paris (Photo: Getty Images)
Messi got on the scoresheet in Paris (Photo: Getty Images)
This is a tricky one to include because the overall performance was very good. But what is the point of an impressive performance if there is no cutting edge?
City created several opportunities (not always clear-cut chances) by switching play from one side to the other and then crossing into the box. That’s how they generated the De Bruyne cross to Sterling from the left, which hit the bar before Bernardo missed from about a yard. Those chances are represented by the huge overlapping circles in the box in the below graphic.
City’s chances created against PSG (the two big circles are Bernardo’s chances)
The most effective way that City generated chances in this game was through reverse passes down both flanks.
Cancelo excels at those when playing left-back, cutting inside onto his right and playing an angled pass in behind the defence. They are more productive than his crosses to the back post, but the opportunity to cross more often arises because City’s wingers (notably Jack Grealish) attract attention and then lay the ball off to Cancelo.
In Paris, Sterling was picked out with a fine example of this move but the forward’s shot was wayward. Mahrez also played two of these passes to De Bruyne on the right, but both shots were saved.
Mahrez had another chance after a switch of play and a cross but Gianluigi Donnarumma pulled off a good save. Other than that it was long-range shots and headers from corners (Ruben Dias headed straight at Donnarumma from close in).
Again, City did create some good chances (the two big ones were Sterling’s header and Bernardo’s follow-up, though he was probably offside) but the majority were half chances that were not struck particularly well.
West Ham 0-0 Manchester City
City lost to West Ham in the Carabao Cup after a penalty shoot-out (Photo: Getty Images)
City did create a lot of openings in their Carabao Cup exit, although not a huge amount of clear-cut ones.
Cole Palmer enjoyed the bulk of City’s best chances from good, patient build-up play. After a cut-back from the right by Mahrez in the first half, the youngster shot straight at Alphonse Areola. Later on, he blazed over the bar after collecting a line-breaking pass from Dias, turning, driving into the box and exchanging passes with Sterling.
That highlights the pros and cons of City’s false nine play quite nicely: good chance creation, without good finishing.
Palmer did perform well on the night and played in Gundogan for a chance, only to shoot wide of the far post. Later, Foden did well before his shot deflected into Gundogan’s path, but the German could not adjust quickly enough to bundle in.
Ake sent a poor header wide from a free kick just before half-time and Dias saw a header well saved from a corner. Sterling headed straight at Areola from a cross late on, and the rest were shots from the edge of the box, like Foden’s low drive at the death.
You could argue that a clinical No 9 would have taken Palmer’s chances, although maybe he would not have created them in the first place considering the 19-year-old dropped so deep beforehand and a “proper” striker might not have done.
Perhaps the more pertinent point regarding a traditional striker, and presumably a physical one, is that City’s crosses into the box when things aren’t going their way would be more likely to find a team-mate if they had a proper target.
Manchester City 0-2 Crystal Palace
City struggled to create against Crystal Palace (Photo: Getty Images)
City didn’t create any “big chances” against Palace on Saturday and, like the Southampton game, the issue was more to do with chance creation than poor finishing.
City’s chances against Crystal Palace
It felt like there were other issues at play, too. After conceding a cheap opening goal (albeit forced by Palace’s good organisation), the visitors had something to cling to and could sit back. City were then thrown off their rhythm — much like against Southampton — to the extent that even simple-looking passes under no pressure were wayward.
“At 1-0 the players wanted to score a goal a little bit quicker and do it,” Guardiola said afterwards, evoking memories of last season’s early struggles when he bemoaned his side’s lack of patience.
Aymeric Laporte’s red card made things infinitely harder but City actually played well with 10 men, still managing to attack in numbers and keeping themselves in the game.
That carried inherent risk, though, because counter-attacks were inevitable. City simply had to score before Palace, and when Gabriel Jesus’ goal was ruled out, they looked flattened.
Their attacks looked increasingly blunt after that and Palace continued to sit in and counter, eventually scoring a second goal.
City put 23 open-play crosses into the box, their second-highest tally of the season after the opener at Spurs. They have made more than 20 in four other matches, however, winning them all.
City’s crosses (open play and set-pieces) against Crystal Palace
On Saturday, far too many went into the box when Palace were in a solid defensive shape, as opposed to Foden’s teasing cross for Jesus’ disallowed goal. Cancelo and De Bruyne put in five each, but neither had their best day and the Belgium international was substituted early.
Rodri had two good chances with his left foot from around the penalty spot and Vicente Guaita made some saves from Jesus and De Bruyne, but nothing particularly spectacular.
“We are a team who are able to score a lot but against teams that defend so so deep sometimes it is difficult to find the right moment to punish them,” Guardiola said afterwards.
“We have to insist, create good and do it well. We have to arrive more in the final third.”
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by PeterParker » Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:28 pm 
