The battle for 3rd place

How do you explain why City struggled to win games at home, and yet were so good away from home?

The Premier league is getting split into 7 clubs and the rest. 15 points between Everton in 7th and Southampton in 8th, and then 6 points between 8th and 17th
 
Marvin said:
How do you explain why City struggled to win games at home, and yet were so good away from home?

The Premier league is getting split into 7 clubs and the rest. 15 points between Everton in 7th and Southampton in 8th, and then 6 points between 8th and 17th
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Surely it would be able to be explained by something as simple as, when we are at the Etihad teams come with the intention of getting a point, so they sit back with no real impetus to go forward which means there isn't a lot of space for players like Sane, Sterling and Jesus to stretch their legs but when In front of their own fans they're more inclined to give a game ago and come out more even if it's just something as simple as holding their line 10 yards higher up, this leads to the game being more open and thus we counter and score more, this is why we've looked so good (admittedly with no end product) against teams in the top four as they try and play football which gives silva and Kev the chance to play around them rather than running into the proverbial brick wall
 
If we look at the teams which left the Etihad with a point, it's certainly true they defended deep, whether deliberately, as in the case of Middlesbrough and United, or because they had no choice, such as Everton and Spurs, but in all cases City created enough chances to have won the game comfortably. As Guardiola would put it we weren't good enough in their box. The only two sides not to concede at the Etihad - Stoke and the rags - rarely ventured far fro their own box, but the other five teams found that City's defending could be rather generous - as in the case of Stones's gift to Southampton and the persistent failure to marl closely enough, which gifted goals and points to M'boro, Spurs and Liverpool. As Pep said only yesterday, if we are to challenge next season we have to play a lot better, not work harder but play better.
 
Our problem has been the lack of goals from the team outside the usual suspects. Vinnie has been a revelation since his return and has had the best scoring ratio for any season he's played for us.
 
Glauber Berti said:
Surely it would be able to be explained by something as simple as, when we are at the Etihad teams come with the intention of getting a point, so they sit back with no real impetus to go forward which means there isn't a lot of space for players like Sane, Sterling and Jesus to stretch their legs but when In front of their own fans they're more inclined to give a game ago and come out more even if it's just something as simple as holding their line 10 yards higher up, this leads to the game being more open and thus we counter and score more, this is why we've looked so good (admittedly with no end product) against teams in the top four as they try and play football which gives silva and Kev the chance to play around them rather than running into the proverbial brick wall
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You have to be able to open these teams up. If they think they can stop you by parking the bus they will.

I hope City have found the solution to opening teams up with Jesus and Sane, but I am not sure. The big wins at the end of the season were against teams like Watford and Palace who had stopped playing once safe. We were inefficient in both boxes as Guardiola put it. Is this problem solved with Kompany and Jesus/Sane or still live? I don't know
 
Marvin said:
You have to be able to open these teams up. If they think they can stop you by parking the bus they will.

I hope City have found the solution to opening teams up with Jesus and Sane, but I am not sure. The big wins at the end of the season were against teams like Watford and Palace who had stopped playing once safe. We were inefficient in both boxes as Guardiola put it. Is this problem solved with Kompany and Jesus/Sane or still live? I don't know
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Guardiola hit the nail on the head there hasn't been a game at all this season except maybe Leicester away in which we haven't created the chances to win and to put the game to bed before the other side have even had a sniff. We're just not clinical enough and that is because we aren't ruthless enough from wide areas. At Barca he had Villa, at Bayern, Robben, Ribery, all players that could contribute 20+ goals a season from out wide.

Now I think both raheem and sane have the potential to be amazing but, and i appreciate they already have a lot of goals between them this season, they haven't scored enough goals considering the sheer amount of chances that are put on a plate for them. The amount of time i've seen raheem blaze past the oppositions full back and do all the hard work only to miss what would be a tap in for most players is beyond counting, how many players in our side would you bet to score one on one most times? Aguero, Kevin, Yaya, maybe Jesus are the only four that come to mind and that just simply isn't good enough no wonder pep gets frustrated
 
Glauber Berti said:
Guardiola hit the nail on the head there hasn't been a game at all this season except maybe Leicester away in which we haven't created the chances to win and to put the game to bed before the other side have even had a sniff. We're just not clinical enough and that is because we aren't ruthless enough from wide areas. At Barca he had Villa, at Bayern, Robben, Ribery, all players that could contribute 20+ goals a season from out wide.

Now I think both raheem and sane have the potential to be amazing but, and i appreciate they already have a lot of goals between them this season, they haven't scored enough goals considering the sheer amount of chances that are put on a plate for them. The amount of time i've seen raheem blaze past the oppositions full back and do all the hard work only to miss what would be a tap in for most players is beyond counting, how many players in our side would you bet to score one on one most times? Aguero, Kevin, Yaya, maybe Jesus are the only four that come to mind and that just simply isn't good enough no wonder pep gets frustrated
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That is true. Our wide forwards don't have a great goal scoring record although Sane looks like he could get 10 a season quite comfortably. Aguero should have scored more too. Also goals from midfield (De Bruyne) dried up.
 
Re breaking teams down. One thing we have lost over recent years is good overlapping wingback play. Back in the title winning sides how often did Richards, Zaba, Kolarov make that little round the corner run and get to the by line. That used to be our stock move that unlock teams that sit back. We lost that over the years when our full backs lost their legs! Some decent energy from our full backs would help with those games.
 
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