Once again more errors led to goals – two this time and the ‘Oooops’ disease has spread from defence into midfield.
‘tis the season? 🎅
We’re not even half way through November and yet our soft centres are already out for everyone else to feed on.
There are way too many individual errors at the moment and I saw it in the body language of some of them yesterday that it’s beginning to affect them. There were moments yesterday where it looked like Josko Gvardiol and Marc Guehi just didn’t want to be near the ball or even the pitch yesterday such was their shrunken demeanour.
Josko eventually got his wish and didn’t re-emerge after the break - his manager stating that the player informed him at half time of feeling a slight niggly injury. The same went for confidence drained, Marc Guehi, who told his manager likewise and sat out the second half too. 🤔 Khusanov moved back to his natural position of central defender and two wing-backs moved into their natural places and then…TA-DAAA! We looked a lot better after the break.
Two hesitation moments undid us yesterday.
The first was Josko Gvardiol, although when I analyse the moment a few times, his midfielders and fellow defenders did little to step up and offer him an outlet. This is the collective thing I’m getting to also.
The second dithery moment came in the heart of our midfield when, for some strange reason, Elliot Anderson was so slow to react to a Forest headed clearance. Perhaps Iliman Ndiaye should have continued to run after it, like he started to, but then stopped; expecting Anderson to do his mopping up job. Regardless of who was at more fault, the communication was shocking and, once again, a slip up cost yet another goal.
Although we saw considerable improvement in the second half, there was a lack of collective intensity in the first half and, when compared to our opponents, some of our players were practically walking at times! 😠 Enzo Maresca didn’t look at all happy about that particular aspect.
However, fingers are already starting to point…
Match of the Day pointed out just how many defensive combinations Enzo Maresca had tried and although I can understand that kind of tinkering to a point when you’re attempting to solidify a problem area, which for some reason wasn’t a problem for the first six games of the season; they did highlight the repercussions of making so many changes to a defensive unit.
There was even a suggestion that so many changes was partly to blame for Gianluigi Donnarumma’s recent poor form; struggling to keep up and gel with different defensive personnel.
Furthermore, the BBC pundits added, it does little for the confidence of the individual player when they’re concerned about making one error for fear of being dropped the next match. Again, I certainly saw that anxiety in a couple of ‘em yesterday evening.
They were all fair points, I thought, and I’ll add to that list of probable causes, playing central defenders in the wing-back positions.
Yes, apparently the staff are managing Nico O’Reilly’s time due to an ongoing back concern and, yes also; Matheus Nunes was out for a fortnight with a knock / possible groin issue recently. But…how long have City fans been highlighting the need for extra cover / specialist wing-backs in our various squads?
Let’s not forget, Matheus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly are midfielders by trade; Rico Lewis has publicly stated his desire to be more of an attacking midfield - and I don’t think there’s ANY City fan who believes that he’s a defender either – and very recently, our manager said in one pre-match press conference that Rayan Ait-Nouri isn’t a defender; he sees the ex-Wolves man as a winger and nothing else.
From just 2 goals conceded in the first 6 games of the season…what a mess it now appears to be defensively.
Seeing Xaver Schlager and former City Academy player, Liam Delap, slicing through both our central midfield and defence with apparent ease before making it look easy also to put the ball past world class Gianluigi Donnarumma summed us up perfectly. That one also stung quite a bit as I sat watching it with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
So, we go into yet another effin international break with the following record since our fantastic 0-3 away win at Anfield on 11th October:
In all competitions…
P8: W4 (1 on pens), D0, L4. F17 A17. Jesus.
Full internationals Gianluigi Donnarumma, Abdukodir Khuasanov, Josko Gvardiol, Marc Guehi, Matheus Nunes, Nico O’Reilly, Ruben Dias, Elliot Anderson and Enzo Fernandez and yet we concede 17 goals in just 8 matches.
Before yesterday, Nottingham Forest hadn’t scored a goal at home since April 2026 and yet not only did they manage 3 against us but they slammed 2 past us in the first 18 minutes!
International breaks sometimes feel like they come at good times and bad times depending on what kind a run a team is on. This one feels very much like a good time to me…time for Maresca and his staff to pour over lots of video nasties; identify the problem(s) and come up with a plan.
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