I can't help but feel that we've got "England World Cup syndrome" in regards to Yaya Toure. We seem to believe that his return will herald a return of the City at the beginning of the year, that we will be carving open teams left, right and centre.
I do think that he's a big part of how we play, but his absence is not to blame for our recent drop in form. In fact, the last time that Yaya was in the team we got beaten by Sunderland, and drew with West Brom. We did beat Liverpool 3-0 but the scoreline didn't tend to reflect the game. His magical powers did not seem to extend to these games.
Our real downward turn started around Christmas Day after we beat Stoke and has continued whether or not Yaya and Kolo were in the team.
I think that our dodgy form is more down to Aguero's misfiring than Yaya's absence, and he seems almost a shadow of the player that we saw in that Swansea game. He has gone from a guy full of confidence who plays with his feathers up, to a frustrated striker who seems to get really annoyed with himself after he misses a chance. Possibly for this reason, he is much more greedy in possession than he was originally and the directness that he brought to us has been lost.
This City team remind me of Arsenal in 2006 and it's a happy coincidence that we've recently become the first team to hit 60 points in 25 games since them. They finished third that season, so I wouldn't start counting our chickens yet as there's a long way to go and that team represents a stark warning from history about what happens once Plan A is cracked.
Many people were upset with the Villa teamsheet but I was actually quite relived. Our style of play is far too narrow and focused on short passes that defences understand that if they pressure us hard and sit deep, we are somewhat out of options. Against Villa, we seemed to set up with a bit more width and as people in the match thread said, we kept "twatting the ball long". A more direct style was just what we needed and I thought that we played very well over the course of 90 minutes. I absolutely don't buy the hate against Zab nor Kolarov and obviously don't see what others do here. I'd be happy to have them line up for us in a Champions League Final without worrying about it.
Yet again though, we failed to score from open play away from home. Since 5th November at QPR, we've scored once from open play away from home. That's once in seven games. I don't care which way you spin it, that's a worrying statistic.
I personally think that we've been struggling to break teams down an awful lot longer than we realise. I think we can go all the way back to the Napoli and Fulham games in September to spot the warning signs of what was coming. This isn't a bad run of form, it's an endemic problem which we have failed to address.
There's no easy answer to why we fail to break teams down and like most things in football, it tends to be a combination of numerous different factors. We don't have any wide players really and the ones that we do are either full backs or cut inside often. Our manager is notorious for creating very narrow teams and believes in the universality of players to create goalscoring opportunities. Our main focal point in attack looks frustrated at the moment and is snatching at chances, a bit like Robinho was after his return from injury; to use an Englishism, he's "trying too hard" at the moment. We struggle to break down counter attacks from pacey players which necessitates playing defensively minded players in the centre. We do not respond well to organised pressing. Our off the ball movement at times is shockingly poor for a team that regularly has 60%+ possession in a match. We do not take enough risks whilst in possession and do have neither the width nor directness to compensate for this.
Numerous different problems that all add to up to our worrying play style away from home.
I think we will win the title, and I think that we will hit 90 points doing so. At home, we're almost invincible, the only crack appearing against United and Liverpool in the cup games that are admittedly not our main focus for the year. Our away games are Swansea, Norwich, Newcastle, Arsenal, Wolves and Stoke. All of those teams outside of Stoke will have a go at us and give us the space to play in.
Mancini is one of those oxymoronic managers where he's both young and experienced at the same time. The thing that I'm not sure that he has quite learnt yet about English football is that sometimes you need to surrender possession to open the game up and allow your team the opportunity to work in some space. Plain and simply, the Stokes of this world do not exist in Italian football. The very hard working, high pressing ruggedly defensive game is a very English phenomenon, at least out of the top European leagues.
I don't think Mancini has ever won at the Britannia, perhaps someone can correct me? It's certainly a bogey ground for his City team as is Goodison and Molineux, we never seem to play very well there. All high pressing ruggedly defensive strong English teams.
Sitting in front of them and playing possession based football is their bread and butter and we need to play more like we did against Villa when we go there. My kingdom for a wide left winger and all that.
He's adapted to foibles of England before and I'm sure he will again but it doesn't half put a strain on the heart. This period up until we play Chelsea (Blackburn/Bolton at home, Swansea away) are all winnable games that I'm not really concerned about. United have to go to a Spurs team with their tails up, and a few other potential slip ups like Norwich away and they historically struggle at Ewood. Plus of course they have to come to God's own.
I'm much more worried about our run up to the United game - Norwich away and Wolves away. Games in which the opposition will be desperate for a win and we struggle against their styles of play. Maybe Wolves will change now McCarthy isn't there, but I doubt it.
The point is, although we are top of the league, we haven't played well in almost two months now and sticking all of our hopes on a returning Yaya Toure will set us up for disappointment. This will be a scrap to the finish line and we need to keep our bottle throughout.
