It's not mental fatique. This team goes as far as De Bruyne and to a lesser degree Sterling carry them. City have good set pieces but without table setters, they can't score. Other than the two I mentioned, they have very few players that can make accurate passes in tight spots on the field. It's painful to watch those carefree kicks into the box that are easily swatted away by the defense.
So, have you been watching City long, then?
Couldn't agree more. I'd throw in the attritional value of the outrageous challenges that have gone unpunished. May be it's my imagination but I'm sure some of our usually measured passing is hurried because our players fear they are going to get flattened with a career-ending challenge.
And I suspect one or two players have started to choose the healthy option and pass backwards when there is a chance to break away quickly.
For me, attrition, as you’ve put it, is a more impactful factor than basic mental fatigue right now (though, I do think the latter has played a part in some of our more frustrating moments as of late, as infrequent as they have been). There is an argument to be made the former is a form of the latter, though.
How many times have we seen Leroy, David, Ilkay, Kevin, and Kun “anticipate” an impending bad challenge in the last few months, sometimes to the detriment of their immediate ideas and play in the match? Ilkay is especially apprehensive (unsurprisingly—I don’t think you can really fault him for that) and often employs tentative, “hop” controls of the ball in midfield when he sees an opposition player already going to ground to try and win the ball off him. I am convinced that Kun—now ever-vigilant—saw that knee high challenge coming and jumped every so slightly right before contact to prevent it from very possibly being another season-ender; had that not been coming he would have been able to break with the ball straight at two pretty flat-footed CBs. That sort of fouling is one of the few ways opposition teams (and not just those languishing in the third division) think they can stop us. And the players’ awareness of that tactic makes them pause briefly each time they see a player coming to assess whether they can actually execute their idea without the potential of injury. That slows down play (slightly or considerably, depending on the situation) and disrupts our system which, as we all know, is heavily reliant on quick, incisive passing.
Thankfully, we’ve already progressed far enough in the league, where the vast majority of these attritional forces reside, that we should be able to overcome them. We are out of the FA Cup now, where this would have also reared it’s ugly head (which may end up being a small blessing in disguise), and we have Arsenal in the League Cup final, who even when trying to apply the dark art aren’t particularly good at it (excepting that one game where they managed to see off David... still fuming about that). And we won’t see much of it in the Champions League, especially in the later rounds.
So, to answer
@Exeter Blue I am here ‘s question, I think we will push through this rough patch (if we can even really call it that—every other team would kill to have this sort of “position of adversity”). Players are starting to come back in to the team, several have been rested here and there in the last few matches, and I think opposition teams’ resolve (outside of one off knockout matches) is starting to wane in the league.
As I said in the pre-match thread, I am actually strangely confident we will win the final this weekend as I think the players will have a point to prove after the Wigan loss.
Interesting that apart from Liverpool it seems to be the shit teams we struggle against the most. Isn't it only Wolves that held us to no goals at home this season too? And Palace away until Monday's injustice against the worst team we've faced all season.
Maybe it's better that we are playing Arsenal in the final and not someone like Norwich or Bolton!
But why do we seem to fuck up more when the opposition are shit?
See my post above for a *possible* reason (which is even more prevalent with the **** teams, including Spurs).