ON average Manchester City conceded a goal from every 21 corners they faced last season, a figure that is notably higher than the norm. It’s a good job then that since Pep Guardiola took the reins in the summer of 2016 City have relinquished a meagre 2.8 corners per game, another stat that goes against the grain.
These two peculiarities are not unrelated for Guardiola has long been acutely aware of his team’s susceptibility to set pieces. Referring to the aerial danger posed by tall opponents from dead-ball situations he recently said: “We defend those guys with Raheem Sterling, Bernardo Silva, David Silva; that is the reality”. He has even joked about going to church and praying before each corner is delivered.
It is an Achilles heel that has not escaped the attention of others either. "Like all sides they have weaknesses and I think we exploited them, especially from the corner," Tottenham midfielder Harry Winks said last week after Lucas Moura became the latest player to benefit from a lack of height and authority at City’s near post.
GOAL!
Incredible! Lucas Moura has scored with his first touch! He rose highest to nod in from the corner.
Man City 2-2 Spurs#TheArenaOnHot96 pic.twitter.com/LACiKEwSZ1
— VDJ Clyde (@VDJClyde) August 17, 2019
“They're small,” Gary Neville asserted in his post-match analysis. “That's why they push up with that stupid line on the free kicks. But they don't seem to concede from them, it's the corners when you're on top of the goalkeeper that's a problem.”
Guardiola’s ‘solution’ to this problem is not technically a solution at all but rather an intention to limit its impact and in this regard, it is an extension of the ‘small-price-to-pay’ principle that has accompanied his credo from the get-go. Simply put, in order to create aesthetically beautiful, highly successful football it is unavoidable to have certain risks attached that very occasionally are costly. In the great scheme of things however those costs are minuscule and usually insignificant.
Transferring this to City’s corner conundrum both Silvas and Raheem Sterling – with an average height of 5ft 7 – collectively scored 48 goals last year and created 46 assists last year. They were everything to a team that accrued 98 points in the league and won four trophies scoring a colossal amount along the way. By virtue of the fact that City has a relatively diminutive defensive mass though five goals were yielded at corners. As stated: a small price to pay.
| Sterling Stats:
No English player has been directly involved in more league goal than Raheem Sterling (Europe’s Top 5 Leagues). He has scored and assisted a combined 31 goals leagues since the start of last season.
World-class!
[@OptaJoe] pic.twitter.com/fqtafX7Xgo
— City Chief (@City_Chief) August 21, 2019
Even so, there have of course been attempts to address this concern. The aforementioned 2.8 corners conceded per game is an almost direct consequence of habitually dominating possession but last term also saw an increased objective to stop the issue at source. On several occasions, a defender would find himself hemmed in by the corner flag and forego the standard procedure of trying to clear it down the line. It’s a logical move that has two potential possible outcomes – either pressure is relieved or the winger blocks it resulting in a goal-kick – but with that comes the slight risk of the ball ricocheting off the defender. With that in mind, Laporte or Zinchenko or Walker simply booted it out for a throw-in.
Corners are not the only vulnerability to this otherwise extraordinary Manchester City squad. (Incidentally, if you also throw penalties and free-kicks into the mix then dead-ball situations added up to an astounding 43% of the league goals they conceded in 2018/19). On Sunday we witnessed the latest example of a second chink in their armour only this one is something that no coach or player can do much about. Harry Wilson’s sublime finish was straight out of that top drawer that commentators are so fond of referring to and it’s a worthy addition to a collection of ‘worldies’ that have stunned the Blues in recent times.
Andros Townsend’s goal vs Man City has been nominated for the FIFA Puskas award #CPFC pic.twitter.com/fjGWjCQdJK
— Crystal Palace (@CpfcNews_) August 19, 2019
Last season saw two in consecutive weeks as first Andros Townsend scored the kind of volley that is usually embellished by memory but in this instance actually improves every time you revisit it. Four days later Leicester’s Ricardo Pereira blasted home a beauty from range as City stumbled into mini-crisis.
Returning to corners that so much has been made of City’s singular deficiency can actually be counter-intuitively viewed as a plus, at least from a fan perspective. This exacting detail that borders on the niche is all that our rivals have to go on. This is where their hope resides. How sweet and surreal that is.
Because elsewhere Guardiola’s men conceded only 14 goals from open play in the whole of the last campaign and two of those were sensational. Going forward meanwhile, well, words need not be wasted on what they did at the other end.
So perhaps if shipping in a handful of goals from set-pieces should never be embraced they can be partially accepted. They can be viewed as City’s Auriga, whispering into their ear "Memento Mori" ("remember you are mortal"). They can be viewed as the mole on Cindy Crawford’s face or Octopus’s Garden on Abbey Road.
They are an imperfection within perfection.
