The doom and gloomers have been out in force for just under 24 hours following Manchester City’s defeat to Spurs on Saturday lunchtime. The Blues lost their first home game of the season for only the second time in 36 years, but that hasn’t stopped some people from claiming that City will not be in contention for the Premier League title this season.
Okay, the performance against Spurs was less ideal and the Faithful had seen the display against Wolves that almost set the marker for the season. With
no disrespect to Wolves, you can’t really say that a 4-0 win against a team who have lost two key players and could possibly be in a relegation scrap this season, is a genuine marker for winning the league.
And one game where the team performed to a high standard doesn’t automatically mean they will maintain that for the remaining 37 matches. No team can, especially a team that is still in transition, like City are. And the Blues are fully in transition following years of success, but have seen their key players who were instrumental, age, drop their standard or leave the club.
Many will point to Kevin de Bruyne’s departure throughout the season, it was mentioned once or twice yesterday on social media, as the reason City failed to break down Spurs. But that’s not giving Spurs the credit they deserve to come to City and win in the manner they did. I don’t even think de Bruyne would have been able to unlock the visitors’ well-organised defence yesterday.
Spurs were solid, marshalled and disciplined, and City will need to learn how to break teams like that down and right now, they are learning how to play together as a team. Even against Wolves, there were numerous loose balls, misplaced passes and a lack of understanding and awareness of other players, and it was the same on Saturday lunchtime.
But this new look City side are going to take some time to get it together and begin working as a unit, which they have done so many times over the years. For example, they have been reliant on Ederson dictating the play from the back, long passes to release players and playing out effectively from defence. This same defence now have to get used to James Trafford filling that role and, after yesterday, confidence may be low in both. That doesn‘t mean we need to hit the panic alarm. It doesn’t mean Pep should go out and spend £40m+ on Gianluigi Donnarumma, even though those are the rumours on today’s media.
Even if they do sign the Italian keeper, it doesn’t mean the faith has been lost in Trafford. With no disrespect to Burnley, the young keeper has stepped up in the class of player he now trains with. The players in front of him are world-class international stars, with a vast amount of experience across Europe. Of course, he’s going to make mistakes, and we should expect it. The rest of the team will also make mistakes.
But two games in is a little early to be writing City’s chances off and the Blues will get better as the season progresses. When the fixtures were released, we all knew it was going to be a difficult start to the season, and that prediction is coming true. We have an away game at Brighton, never an easy place to go to, coming next, followed by United and Arsenal after the international break – it’s almost as if the fixture computer hated us in the summer!
At some point, the team will click. It may need a tweak here and there by Guardiola to make it happen, but once this team are fully gelled and understand each other, there may be no stopping them. Whilst the Faithful would love this to happen sooner or later (preferably against United), there needs to be an understanding that it may take a bit of time and a little patience to make it happen.
After all, losing one match to a decent team is not the end of the world!
