Our attack - what's off?

[domalino]

Got any links to those Dom?

Pep Guardiola eyes move for Erling Haaland to bolster attack

Manchester City are poised to enter the race for Erling Haaland, the prolific Borussia Dortmund striker.Fresh from signing a new two-year contract, Pep Guardiol

www.thetimes.co.uk

Manchester United and Manchester City both poised for Erling Haaland

Haaland is widely recognised as Europe's standout young finisher having plundered 33 goals in 26 starts since the Bundesliga side signed him last January.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[oddfellows]

I don't know pal, we're not paid £20m per year to come up with the answers, even if many of us can see there have been fundamental areas that have not been properly addressed for a couple of years.

I can't believe we are stood here after four plus years of Pep and we are having to talk about a refresh of the squad when we have supposedly paid big for the long-term?

It's very poor recruitment. We need two top bracket players for midfield and up front. It will cost a lot of money, but it has to be done.

I also believe, short-term, Messi would solve a lot of issues in the final third we are having, certainly if that is backed up by a world class, energetic midfielder.

Makes me wonder if Pep is putting his £20m on the Champions League roulette wheel to complete his legacy ?

The Holy Grail so to speak.

Let's not under estimate 8 domestic trophies in no time is impressive.

 

[DATOIA]

Easy

in 17/18 and 18/19 we had this:

walker-------------------------delph
--------------fern---------------------
----debru------------silva------------
sterling-----aguero----------sane---

now we have;

walker-------------------------mendy
--------------rodri---------------------
----debru------------gundo------------
sterling-----aguero----------foden---

whole left wing is shite and teams now for sure that if they cover debruyne and sterling
they have nothing to worry about.

in 17/18 and 18/19 you could cover sterling and kev, but there were silva and sane left which you couldn't,
now it's gundo and foden and they cover themselves successfully.... :D

so to sum it up -> whole left wing needs to be replaced by decent players..

 

[jayfx]

Recruitment.

Last season, we really struggled after Kompany left and then Laporte got injured. We were linked with Ake at the beginning of last season but we didn't go in for him. With hindsight, we should have brought in Ake as we were left short when Laporte suffered injury.

We've learned from that mistake and brought in both Diaz and Ake. Our defense has, finally, shored up but now we're struggling at the other end.

We haven't replaced Silva (Fofen isn't at his level yet and not being played), we haven't replaced Fernandino (Rodri does not move things forward as quickly as Ferna), we haven't replaced Aguero (like it or not, age, injuries, contract all part of Kun winding down), we haven't replaced Sane and we have still brought in a decent left-back.

Generally, since Pep's time at City, we've seen class players get past their best or leave but we haven't brought in class players to replace them.

 

[Bill Walker]

Our attacking players just seem of the boil at the moment, Foden has been crap in the last 2 games, Bernardo is not the player he once was, Kevin is out of form and not as effective, and Sterling keeps missing chances and runs up blind alleys too much, Mahrez has reverted to FFS.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

SOT = Shots on Target





where the key ground is being lost compared to our peak. We've averaged 38% SOT conversion rate under Pep, but it's 31% this season and drags us into these lower categories where our win % drops off critically.

 

[01cravend]

We've spent a lot of money on 2nd choice players Cancelo, Mahrez as examples. Danilo was absolutely fine as Walkers back-up and we already had Sterling and Bernardo on the right when we decided to buy Mahrez. Could have saved £100m there and spent it on 1 world class attacking first teamer(Griezmann/Kane?) or one of those generational talents(Felix) but no we don't spend that on one player we'd rather bring 2 in from the level or 2 below. And now that our top level talent grows old(Aguero/Dave/Dinho) and/or leaves us(Sane) and we replace them with inferior talent we unsurprisingly look worse for it.

 

[sky_blue]

These are the xG maps for City and Liverpool's most recent match. I've seen a lot of people say that we create high volume of low quality chances so this is for them. We created 3 very high quality chances against West Brom.

1. Gundo - 0.59 xG
2. Kevin - 0.47 xG
3. Sterling - 0.62 xG

For reference, the highest score is assigned to penalty in the xG model, but even that is 0.76 (or in other words, on an average 76% of penalties result in a goal). So from that you can gauge that 0.62 xG is not a half chance, but as big a chance you will get from open play. As we all know, we only scored one and missed the other two. I'm not even counting half chances like Foden's or Cancelo's shot.



Liverpool created 3 high quality chances against Spurs.
1. Salah - 0.49 xG
2. Mane - 0.64 xG
3. Firmino - 0.45 xG

Salah and Firmino finished their chances while Mane missed his (similar to Sterling, he has been very poor this season). Liverpool won 2-1.



Okay one more bonus xG map for the Manchester derby.

As you can see, the xG for the top 3 chances for United were -
1. Greenwood - 0.3 xG
2. Fernandes - 0.27 xG
3. Lindelof - 0.19 xG

Whereas the xG for the 3 chances for City were -
1. Mahrez - 0.37 xG
2. Kevin - 0.36 xG
3. Jesus - 0.34 xG

Needless to say we had better chances, but squandered all of them.

 

[Pubteam Lomas]

People go on about our wastefulness in front of goal as though it's a new thing.
Even at the peak of our powers we were profligate. It's just more obvious now as we don't create as many chances.

 

[TheThirdDeano]

Mentally weak