Very frustrating match. I agree with a lot of the criticism here, particularly 2nd half we were relatively poor, and gave the ball away far too much, but still by any standards we were far the better team overall. Hit the woodwork twice, Haaland missed an unbelievable sitter, our press forced them into multiple errors trying to pass out of defence etc.
We could easily have played the same game and won 5-1, and everyone would be saying we're unstoppable.
Football's like that sometimes.
We're second in the league and top of our CL group. It's not perfect, but it's not at all bad.
Picking up avoidable bookings through stupidity meaning players will miss important tough away games is also poor imo.Shipping three goals at home and giving away leads in the last 10 minutes for what, four games on the spin just isn't good enough at all.
It's unacceptable from this group of elite players and coaches, plain and simple.
And sent off for not playing to the whistle, he had already been booked.True dat.
However, if Grealish continued the attack and if he had scored, that would have forced VAR to intervene/review the goal and award it, overcoming the ref's decision.
We just lack midfield control. Rodri is doing a lot more than he should be doing , Gundo last season helped control the midfield. We miss a Gundo type player probably why Pep wants Paqueta his work rate and ability would transform our midfield. Would help Rodri massively. Midfield is so important to how we play , our midfield last season was the best in Europe. But we’ve lost two of the most crucial parts to that midfield in Gundo who has left and Kev to injury.
We're third.
Behind the scousers.
That’s absolute bollocks. They’re closer to Arsenal than they were at the same stage last season, two years ago they were a point behind Chelsea at this juncture and it’s literally only three years since they were eighth after 14 games.The serenity of champions-in-waiting has given way to a strange, skittish energy, with the finest team in Europe realising that they confront their toughest title fight in years.
Because comparing 18 games to four games is a rock-solid statistical model.This is not simply an aesthetic judgment. The crumbling of defensive poise is backed up by the numbers: since a regulation win over Young Boys last month, they have conceded at a rate of 2.5 goals per game. For the first 18 games this campaign, it was 0.8.
And 17 of those chances came v Chelsea.While Guardiola was adamant his side had barely given Tottenham a look-in, this argument was of dubious statistical merit. Over the past month, City have conceded an average of 10 chances per game, a far cry from the 6.2 they managed before this winter wobble set in.
And last week v Liverpool, he dribbled past 12 players. His dribbling ‘rate of return’ is the highest in the Premier League by some margin. He had one quite poor game that Brown happened to watch.But when the system falters, City can look oddly destabilised. At 21, Doku is already a captivating talent. You only had to admire his shimmying first-half movement, feigning to go left before cutting right and cannoning a shot off the crossbar, to wonder at how he could yet flourish under Guardiola. But there is still a callowness to him, too, reflected in the one successful dribble he completed all game. With that rate of return, there will be limits to how much freedom Guardiola affords his Belgian prodigy.