Mostly off the pace. Valuable point
We're now living through the period many City fans feared... A season without Rodri. Until the very poor Gundog was substituted for Foden, we lacked creativity & cohesion in attacking midfield which ultimately cost us.
The Geordies had the better of the opening half hour as Gundog was caught sleeping on the ball several times, & bullied off it on others. Coupled with his errant passing, it felt like we were playing with 10-men, as well as without Rodders & KDB. Not good enough.
Our brilliant opener came against the general run of play I thought, after Grealish battled for the ball near the halfway line & gained a fortunate bobble which meant he won the duel. He surged forward to place a slide rule pass to the very good Gvardiol, who took the ball in his stride, checked back sending the defenders the wrong way & placed a ball through Tonali's legs for a sensational goal. Newcastle were unfortunate to be a goal down, but we went in at half-time ahead.
Newcastle came at us on the restart & we struggled to assert ourselves in midfield. Rico had a quiet game which mostly passed him by, but the little he did, he did well as opposed to Gundog who was now looking like an anvil weighing down a drowning man.
Newcastle stabbed a hopeful ball forward to Gordon, who was played just onside by Walker's trailing leg. He raced toward goal 1 on 1 versus Ederson who missed the challenge & caught Gordon for a penalty. Gordon scored from the spot to give Newcastle the goal they'd threatened & probably deserved.
Probably a bit later than it should've happened, Pep hauled off the very poor Gundog to be replaced by Foden. We immediately looked better balanced, more cohesive & threatening. Foden's had a slow start to the season with rest & injury, but he quickly got back up to speed as we started showing more urgency & took control of the game.
Jack & Rico were replaced by Doku & Savinho, & the latter in particular slotted in seamlessly on the right, which allowed Bernardo to move central to have a greater effect on the game.
Doku offered his usual bag of jeopardy on the left, but he seriously pissed me off when an attack broke down, the ball was passed from defender to defender, then out to Murphy. If Doku had bust a gut, at worst he'd have arrived at the same time as the ball, but he allowed it to crawl to Murphy & didn't even attempt to track him & make a challenge. Thankfully the move fizzled out to nothing, but having just come on, this wasn't good enough from Jeremie.
The game drifted out to a draw, which Newcastle seemed to be the more happy with than City at the end. My MoTM was Gvardiol for a good display & a brilliantly taken goal.
That's 3 draws in a week without Rodri, but I think Gundog not being up to speed yet has been a big factor in that. I though the defence were good over all, but we lacked a cutting edge in the creative department. Hopefully Phil is returning to form & fitness, as I think Gundog should be given a rest & time to regain his form & fitness from the bench.
