The team balance between control and action has been off for the last couple of years. 2016-2019 it was arguably slightly too heavy in the "action" direction, with only the Silvas, Gündy, and to an extent Laporte and Delph being more "control" players. Kompany, Walker, Fernandinho, De Bruyne, and the front three all had a massive bias to action. Great football to watch, but meant we were on the wrong side of some basketball games when we couldn't get control of things (Monaco, Liverpool, Spurs in the CL)
Then we moved more into the "control" phase with Rodri phasing out Dinho, Zinchenko featuring more, and Mahrez being more involved (who in fairness could do a bit of both), before our ultimate "control" signing in Grealish. Fielding a team with Bernardo and (the City version of) Grealish on the wings is a million miles away from the 2017-19 Sterling/Sané approach, and gave us the ability to suffocate teams. But we still had enough "action" players in De Bruyne, Foden, Haaland, Mahrez, Álvarez et al to create and take chances and break teams down
From 2023 onwards, our "action" players have been less effective, and as such our control of games often veers into the "sterile domination" of late-period Wenger's Arsenal. Plenty of possession but not enough dynamism or invention to open teams up as often as we need to
Someone like Cherki, in combination with more energetic legs in midfield and at fullback, is exactly what we need to try and rebalance things again