Manchester City’s wastefulness and cruel misfortune is proving to be their downfall
TOWARDS the end of Sunday’s one-sided affair at Tottenham’s vast and impressive new stadium the home side made a rare venture forward. Heung-min Son found himself in space and gambled with a shot but it was too central and easily dealt with by Ederson.
In any other game, in any other fixture this would be a meaningless stat-padder; a moment instantly forgotten about. This though was a vignette so highly unusual that footage of it should have been sent to the National Football Museum, preserved for posterity.
Tottenham had an attempt on goal against Manchester City that didn’t go in.
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Prior to that, there had been two efforts – on or off target – from Jose Mourinho’s men and both nestled into the back of the net and going back to the corresponding fixture in August we find the same economical accuracy. Then a speculative Harry Kane punt from inside his own area technically counted as a noteworthy attempt while elsewhere only an Eric Lamela shot and a Lucas Moura header threatened the City goal. Both were converted.
Four goals from six attempts is most definitely a glitch in the matrix but if you believe it to be the sole preserve of Tottenham this season think again. In Pep Guardiola’s first campaign in England his side put Spurs into a blender and whizzed them around for most of the game at the Etihad. They eased into a two-goal lead while Tottenham could barely get out of their own half.
Then on the hour-mark the visitors scored from their very first shot on target and in the final flourishes they scored once more with their second and final shot on target. “The players don’t deserve that again,” Guardiola prophetically said moments after seeing a demolition turn into a draw.
All told, across the three games Manchester City peppered the opposition goal with 65 attempts while in return Spurs managed just 12. From that domination the Blues drew twice and lost once.
Worryingly, such rope-a-doping is becoming a common theme at City’s expense this season though it was in evidence last year too; only back then the significance of the defeats took precedence over the manner of them.
When Crystal Palace turned up as supposed sacrificial lambs they carved out three opportunities on target and scored from every one of them and then a few weeks later City travelled to the north-east to take out their frustrations on a relegation-haunted Newcastle. The home side troubled Ederson twice and scored from both.
This term Norwich and Wolves have each boasted a 100% success rate from their shots on target with Guardiola saying after the latter: “We are a team that plays a specific way but it is a bad day. That happens sometimes.”
This philosophical approach however, turned to exasperation on Sunday on seeing City once again dominate possession and chances created only to be undone by a statistical anomaly. Worse still, it came only days after Manchester United were equally put to the sword in a Carabao Cup semi with the Blues repeatedly opening up their neighbours on a whim but ultimately failing to capitalise. The Reds meanwhile scored and emerged victorious from their only meaningful attack. “Maybe one day we make a click and it changes,” the Catalan remarked.
That right there is the greatest coach who has ever lived essentially admitting that the circumstances are becoming so fundamentally odd that he doesn’t have a Scooby.
Is anyone to blame for this bizarre run of events? Certainly no individual can take any great burden with a defensive mishap and planted foot by the goalkeeper here and there along with a couple of unstoppable worldies all merging to a varied compendium of effect. And overall, Guardiola is entirely correct to state that City’s attacking mantra leaves them open to a sucker punch from time to time.
Yet of course none of this would particularly matter if everything was hunky-dory at the other end, but with errant finishing that is increasingly becoming the main narrative of City’s year unfortunately that is far from being the case.
This season the reigning champions have compiled an astonishing 317 shots at goal in the Premier League that dwarfs Liverpool’s 154. But while Salah and co have a clinical 39% success ratio from their tally City’s languishes at nearly half that on 20.5%.
Such profligacy can be annoying when 3-0 up with a record score-line imagined. When bang-average opposition strikers suddenly turn into Marco van Basten however it’s a real problem.
Europe and the recent loss away to Wolves aside – a game skewed by Ederson’s dismissal in the 12th minute – City have tasted defeat ten times across all domestic competitions in the past two seasons. Those ten losses have collectively contained 181 shots by City to 76 by their victors.
“I can’t really comprehend how we lost this game,” Kevin de Bruyne told Sky Sports after the United goof up. “We were way too wasteful today. We have to learn from this.”
With a fourth penalty miss from six and a further string of chances going astray in the capital it seems they’re nowhere close to learning just yet.
