City Tactics

Stick that in your pipe Ricardo

But for his calf and then his hamstring Aguero’s ‘13/14 would have been one for the ages. Before the latter injury he was scoring a goal every 67 minutes for City. If he’d have stayed injury free and gone into the World Cup in that form….

Alas not to be, he was incredible until the hamstring

‘a little fractious’ 😂

Very true

Yeah, he did feel a bit lost in the set up I agree.

Didn’t give Doku an inch to set himself and go. Everything was being done under extreme pressure from Aina. Really stood out in the ground, helps when you’ve got everyone back defending and he was only doing for 20 mins but he played him really well.

Ola Aina was excellent against Doku last night. Saw him do similar at Forest (last season or season before, can’t remember) but was watching on tv and not sure how he was doing it. In the ground you can see how quickly he gets across when play was starting to shift to our left side….

being Bernardo and Rodri from deep and no one else getting involved centrally ahead of them. So you’re then totally reliant on going wide (wingers usually doubled marked). Think he may keep Cherki on in a similar situation going forward.

Once he made the changes at 2-2 last night, to put the wingers on, the thing that stood out was how the approach became completely geared to going wide (understandably to an extent) but keeping both Semenyo and Haaland on through the middle (goal threat) the central build-up ended up….

Well that’s a bit of a tonic

Not one we should be dropping points in that. Should have got two ahead. Cost us, 2 great finishes out of very little for them but that’s the risk you run.

Deary me. Great finish

*easy

Looked like he went down early but also caught him? Long way away

Out of no where that. Need to step it up now.

Great improvisation on the finish to be fair.

Would have been nice to get another at the end there. We’ve been good though. Need to keep it up second half and put the game to bed.

Cherki does what Cherki does. Semenyo does what Semenyo does

Guehi’s radar well off so far tonight. We’re playing well though, pinning them in

Cherki pressing in the front line with Haaland, supported by Bernardo. Semenyo dropping into the next line in the press

Starting from a 4-2-2-2 again with Haaland (right) and Semenyo (left) split.

Haaland and Foden in for Marmoush and the injured O’Reilly

Over 90 minutes of football were played in these matches without a single shot on target.

The deadlock is broken by a Tarkowski header from a set piece

Looking forward to our derby tomorrow night vs Forest.

Reckon that’s closer to us than Leeds-Sunderland

If these are genuine questions then an exchange on Bluesky won’t be enough to fill in the blanks for you.

It’s very simple

I think this would outweigh value gained by defensive teams from blocking.

Penalising both teams for grappling would soon put a stop to that too, that may have a bigger impact on the defensive team but not to the extent to outweigh the above imo.

Penalising blocking has a huge impact on the goalkeepers ability to get to crosses within his range of movement. Huge impact. Blocking by teammates often allows attacking teams to work situations where they have an unchallenged target.

Was just getting some funny looks walking across St Ann’s Square laughing my head off when that phone started ringing.

Let’s say City get the opportunity to take 50% more long throw ins due to dominance, that’s 6 goals across a PL season.

Minus off the goals that are scored from short throws (rate of 0.010) and you’re getting an additional 3 (4 at a push) goals per season. Not huge but not to be sniffed at either.

I saw a stat saying Kayode had taken 54 throw in 11 matches (think it was the first 11 matches of the season). At that rate and the xG you mention of 0.022 goals, that’s circa 4 goals per season.