Pep Guardiola was presented with an observation following his side’s 3-2 home victory against RB Leipzig on Tuesday.
The five goals his Manchester City side have conceded in the Champions League this season have all been essentially the same.
Whether it has been against Leipzig, Young Boys or Red Star Belgrade, City have been undone by a ball in behind the defence leaving the opposition in a one-against-one with their goalkeeper.
Scenes like these…
It has not been anywhere near enough to hold them back — they have won all five matches and secured top spot in Group G with a game to go — but it has got to the stage where Guardiola has admitted some concern.
“It’s not normal to concede four goals in the way we conceded against Chelsea (in the Premier League this month), and today the goals we conceded… it didn’t happen last season. That’s the truth, it didn’t happen,” he said on Tuesday.
Last season, he said the key to City winning the Champions League was their ‘proper’ defending, the ability of their defenders to win duels, tackles, headers and do the more agricultural side of the game.
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He did not directly acknowledge the pattern of goals in the Champions League this season when asked the question, instead focusing on those conceded in that 4-4 draw against Chelsea and the two on Tuesday, but even those cases were enough for him to admit that things need to improve.
It should also be pointed out that the bar for Guardiola to admit that something needs to improve is set pretty high, as he prefers to focus on City’s many good traits.
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“We will talk about it, we will talk; but it’s football, we are human beings, it happens. Our opponents play too. But we have to improve in that, otherwise… not every time you can come back,” he continued, referencing their victory over Leipzig, who had led 2-0.
The Germans’ first goal at the Etihad Stadium is easily diagnosed: Manuel Akanji made a basic error in misjudging a long ball. City had lost possession through Phil Foden in midfield, but his counter-pressing was good and forced Leipzig back to their goalkeeper. The problem was Akanji’s error, though the outcome was the same: a clear-cut chance for the opposition.
Leipzig’s second was another mistake, and one that let them showcase their talents. They won the ball back, played it quickly to a free man and then looked for a runner.
There were no City players in a position to counter-press after losing the ball, with Akanji the only one able to even try to get close to Xavi Simons (in possession in the screenshot above), but they were exposed by Leipzig’s excellence in these scenarios, and a mistake by Ruben Dias.
He came up short in the above duel with Lois Openda, allowing the Belgian to run clear on goal from inside his own half.
Leipzig are very good at this, and Guardiola’s men did excellently in the reverse fixture last month (a 3-1 away win) to restrict their threat, but the goal City did concede was a fine example of what they do well.
Winning the ball back on the edge of their box, Leipzig advanced into space with no opposition from any City players.
Openda dropped in to receive a pass, laid it off to the third man and immediately spun in behind before Dias could get to grips with him.
This presented the following scenario, from which Openda scored.
“When you have long balls, you have to win the duels. You have to be stronger, and we were not,” Guardiola said after Tuesday’s game, in another joint reference to Chelsea and Leipzig.
He also said: “You have to win duels and win actions and when we didn’t do it — and after that, we were anxious.”
In his press conference, he highlighted how City did these very things well against Liverpool at the weekend, but he expanded on his “anxious” point, and used Dias’ yellow card last night, for a high foot, as the example.
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“Against Liverpool, it was brilliant, against fast players, but sometimes we are so anxious, the first yellow card from Ruben is unnecessary, to put his foot here (high),” he said, having substituted Dias at half-time against Leipzig.
“If you can control the ball, then (you) control the ball. If you don’t win the duel, you don’t win the duel, but you are there, but you have to avoid that. You have to get better. We were lucky. Today, we were lucky.”
There were similar goals conceded against Young Boys and Red Star, too.
After an Erling Haaland shot was saved in Switzerland last month, Young Boys broke quickly, finding a man in space. They advanced and played a through ball that evaded Dias (who went with his man and could not stretch to cut the pass out) and Rico Lewis, who stepped up to play offside and later admitted he should have done better.
At home against Red Star in September’s first group game, there was a scenario that raises a question about City’s reaction to second balls this season.
Matheus Nunes did not effectively challenge for a header and then the loose ball dropped just too far out of Rodri’s range, allowing the visitors to play a quick pass to a free man.
They then played it forward immediately, catching City on the hop.
Second balls are a difficult skill to master: the sheer unpredictability of them means you cannot win some, no matter how well you are set up, and other teams are — as is evident in some of these examples — also very good at them. But it feels the ball is not dropping City’s way as much as it did last season.
Even if that is true, it is not necessarily because they are doing anything wrong — it could simply be the luck of the bounce — but some big pretty spaces have been obvious in these examples, which could be a symptom of injuries to many players who slow the game down and keep the lines tight, such as Jack Grealish and John Stones.
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It could also be partly attributed to the summer departure of Ilkay Gundogan, who also helped keep the lines tight and was, individually, almost magnetised to loose balls.
Overall, though, it has not been causing too many issues.
Guardiola was actually asked about his side’s defending before the Leipzig game, because he had noted after the 1-1 draw with Liverpool on Saturday that City had restricted them to just two or three shots on target but still conceded a goal to one of those — something that has been a theme of the season so far. Statistically, City have the third-best defence in the Premier League (13 goals conceded), but have kept just four clean sheets in their 13 top-flight games. Across all competitions, it is only five from 21.
“The only game we conceded a lot of goals and chances was against Chelsea, the rest was the same average as last season, when we won the Premier League and went far in the competitions,” Guardiola said on Monday.
“But our average is like the Liverpool game; we concede two or three shots on target. We lost to Wolves with one goal from one shot on target (it was actually two goals from one shot on target, due to a Dias own goal). In general, our average is good. The only exception is Chelsea, and I give credit to Chelsea, not just our mistakes. The rest is similar to what we have done last season.”
He knows the stats: City have conceded an average of 2.77 shots on target per Premier League game this season; last season, it was 2.53. They are performing better in the Champions League (2.0; five in 10) compared to last season (3.0; 39 in 13), although that is to be expected considering the 2022-23 figures include the seven knockout-phase games.
Only Arsenal (32) have conceded fewer shots on target than City (36) in this season’s Premier League. City have only conceded 98 shots of any kind, 12 less than second-ranked Arsenal (110) and miles ahead of Aston Villa (140) in third.
So, overall, City are restricting the amount of chances they are conceding very well.
It is hard to imagine them being even more miserly in defence, but they could still do with tightening up just that little bit extra.