The Real Madrid game I thought was an outstanding result and a very strong performance for Manchester City. It was a profoundly good night in this strange season, and yet even in a good moment a recurring theme has developed: weakness in both boxes. It might seem churlish to raise this after knocking Real Madrid out over 2 legs but I am sure I was not the only City fan who spent much of the game wondering just how Real Madrid were still in the game, and why weren't City out of sight?
If you listen to Pep he frequently comments about City's lack of efficiency in both boxes and this was most definitely on display against Real Madrid. We created some fantastic attacking moves and yet the final pass, or shot, frequently went astray. Our attacking is almost brilliant but lacks the efficiency of Liverpool. And in the same way after dominating the opening period Benzema was unchallenged in heading home and that kind of summed up our season.
I think the defensive mistakes are down to two aspects:
Up front we have fantastic wide forwards, but we don't have a lethal Kane like finisher any more. Aguero is losing mobility. Our final pass often is poor, and we have a tendency to over-pass. Sterling in particular could score a lot more goals. It is a positive in a way that if Sterling could improve his finishing he could go from 25 goals a season to 35 or even 40.
- Absence of an obvious partner for Laporte. If you keep changing the back 2, and you play a 35 midfielder, or an Otamendi, you will make mistakes.
- Defensive cover in midfield is not absolute. Good as Gundogan and Rodri are on the ball, off it, they aren't Kante. I am yet to be convinced that Rodri has the mobility to play this role effectively. It was largely OK against Real Madrid as their midfield is pedestrian.
We have to play to our maximum in the remaining games. I feel we'll probably beat Lyon but will fall short in the semi or final because we have this inefficiency to our game.
We are a 100 point squad but we can still improve a lot.
So, you are complaining that City's front 3 are not as efficient as Messi-Suarez-Neymar with Xavi and Iniesta behind them. Because our attack would be comparable to Barca's in 2015 if it were as efficient as you want it to be. 148 goals are not enough, 180 are needed. And scoring 4 goals over 2 legs against the best defence in Europe this season is not enough. 8 goals would have been more like it.
Pep wants from his No 9 much more than just to be a great finisher. Complaining about Jesus for not scoring enough in the CL is an OTT criticism. 6 goals and 3 assists in 500 minutes is quite productive. Only Lewandowski has done better in terms of goals/assist per minutes. But Lewandowski or Kane or whoever great finisher out there can't press and defend from the front half as well as Jesus does.
Btw, we scored 4 goals vs Liverpool from 6 shots on target. Wouldn't be surprised if we score 3 goals with 5 shots on target in the next game(s). That's football. We could have scored more against Real. We may score more against other teams when we may actually need to score more, who knows?