There was a Manchester City game like this last season, where they utterly dominated the home team and created a host of chances, but on that occasion, they only came away with a 1-1 draw with Nottingham Forest.
“It was a brilliant performance,” Pep Guardiola said afterwards.
“We (played with) the same energy in many things, win the duels, we made the process really well against a team that defends with nine or 10 players in the box. We controlled the transitions, we created chances from set pieces and we missed the goals from one metre to the goalkeeper, not just one.
“We didn’t score and that’s all, what can I say?”
Forest had struck in the 84th minute with their first shot on target and it was very nearly the same on Sunday, but Rodri scored in the 88th minute, three minutes after Sheffield United had nicked their equaliser — with their first shot on target, a deflected one at that.
“The performance was a lot closer to what we wanted than the scoreline suggests,” Juanma Lillo, the City assistant standing in for Guardiola, who is recovering from back surgery in Barcelona, said afterwards.
Due to how regularly City do this type of thing, it is probably worth pointing out how impressive it is for them to restrict a team to one — or zero — shots on target away from home.
When you are inside Bramall Lane and you feel the fervour with which the home support celebrated a corner (their first of the match and in the final 20 minutes), you appreciate the value of taking them out of the equation altogether. Especially as the home support bristled with anger that was aimed towards the referee and the “corrupt” Premier League, but was surely born out of the frustration that comes from just not being able to get on the ball.
Keeping those emotions at bay goes a long way towards the final result and that is what City do so well — and a key part of it is something that their own fans do not always like so much.
In his analysis of the match, Lillo highlighted two things he was particularly pleased with — as well as the many chances that were created, particularly in the second half.
Lillo was speaking in Spanish, and stopping every few sentences to allow the translator to keep track, and he made sure to go back and finish with the important stuff. “The team was always stable and always patient,” he said.
Guardiola has always been about patience and doing things at the right moment but it really came into focus for City fans in the 2019-20 season, most notably when he talked about it in the wake of a 5-2 home defeat to Leicester City. The problem, he said, was that City were so keen to get the ball forward, they left spaces in their midfield and allowed themselves to be counter-attacked.
That was a long, long time ago and City have won three consecutive Premier League titles and the treble since then, precisely because they appreciate how to be patient. And when they are, the goal(s) nearly always come — it is only really in those games like the one at the City Ground in February where they do not.
(Mark Leech/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
There is not always such an appreciation of patience in the stands or for those watching at home, though, and for much of the first half, there were complaints online about a lack of creativity due to either Kevin De Bruyne’s or Phil Foden’s absence, depending on the point being made.
In fairness, Lillo did note how City struggled to get on the ball in dangerous areas due to Sheffield United’s set-up: “There wasn’t much space”.
And he highlighted that City did have a renewed energy after the break, creating chances, “arriving” to the box a lot (a beloved phrase of the Spanish coaches) and being able to find Bernardo Silva and Julian Alvarez in dangerous areas quickly after winning the ball back.
City did win a penalty after a stray arm stopped Julian Alvarez finding Haaland with a cut-back after a killer ball from Jack Grealish (who Guardiola called for more attacking “brilliance” from last weekend) and Alvarez also saw a great chance saved by Wes Foderingham, whose fine game continued into the second half, but he could only do so much.
He denied Haaland in a one-against-one after the break but by that point, City were really laying siege to the Sheffield United goal, and there were still more than 30 minutes to go.
It should have been no surprise, then, when Grealish dinked a ball to the back post and Haaland headed in the opener.
“Today would’ve been difficult for any striker with how it was in the first half,” Lillo said of Haaland, another reminder of the challenge faced when City come up against teams playing a back five and a compact four in midfield (as Brighton found out against West Ham on Saturday. The Seagulls, admittedly, have less capable lock-pickers to call upon, but the problems posed are the same).
“If there is anything that demonstrates what Erling is like it’s not the goal,” Lillo continued. “It’s the mental strength to know that at some point the chance will come. This kid… it’s not easy to knock him down.”
The same can be said for City as a team. With Guardiola in Barcelona it would have been easy to jump to conclusions — without their leader on the touchline, were they missing something, perhaps? It did not matter what they might have been missing (creativity in the first half, a cutting edge in the second or even solidity for the United equaliser) but no doubt something would have been, had they not got the victory that they deserved.
“He’s been totally present,” Lillo said of Guardiola’s constant communication, in any case. “It’s as if he was here today, the only thing missing was him in person. He was here the whole time.”
And City were not missing much either. They established dominance in the first half, got better in the second, missed a few chances and then took the one that they really needed.
After that game at Forest, City lost just one of the final 24 games of the season, and that was after the title was wrapped up and they prepared for their two dates with destiny.
So the next time things take until the second half to really get going, it is probably worth remembering that City usually get there in the end — and they know exactly how to get there.
