by In some ways he was a freak. Manchester City won the xG 2.6-0.5. The goal that made it 3-3 was only the second Tottenham’s Dejan Kulusevski has ever scored with his head (actually, his shoulder) in his professional career. City hit the woodwork twice. They might have benefited from a very late winner if referee Simon Hooper hadn’t fouled Erling Haaland when Jack Grealish was through on goal – an unwelcome advantage that Pep Guardiola was restrained in his comments afterwards -game. It was 3-3 but it was a game that City dominated; the champions should have nothing to worry about.
And yet, this keeps happening. City have won their last three Premier League games. The three equalizers they conceded came after 95 minutes, after 80 minutes and after 90 minutes. Last Wednesday, they beat RB Leipzig 3-2, but only after going down 2-0. So much for those who miss the obvious brilliance of City as risk-free and bloodless.
Guardiola himself looked rather unconcerned. City weren’t right defensively against Chelsea, he admitted, but his view seemed to be that this was just one of those things. His record against Spurs (in various guises) is vaguely poor – just two wins in the last nine league meetings. The city is just three points off the top. John Stones was on the bench again as he recovers from a muscle problem but is likely to be fit soon, allowing Guardiola to return him to that central midfield role that was so difficult to fill while he was off present.
But Rodri will miss the trip to Aston Villa on Wednesday after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season on Sunday. City have lost all four of their games and have won six out of six at Villa Park in the league this season as Villa, who are just a point behind City, have scored more home goals than any team in the last five best in Europe apart from Bayern Munich.
The assumption is always that City will click in the spring, when they will be at the peak of Guardiola’s training schedule; the question is how much they will be fighting to cancel by then and the game at Villa looks like it could give Arsenal (away at Luton) and Liverpool (away at Sheffield United) to extend their advantage.
City have conceded nine goals in their four Premier League games, their worst run since 2016. This season as a whole, they have conceded 16 goals in 14 games, or 1.14 per game, compared to 0.87 over last season, 0.68 the previous season and 0.84 in 2020-21. City have become a team to contend with, a problem they haven’t really faced consistently in the Premier League since Guardiola’s first season in charge.
There are obvious explanations: it was impossible to reduce intensity after winning the treble, especially considering how long they were chasing the Champions League; they are now more direct with Haaland, which makes it more difficult to be ready to defend on the counters; Although Jérémy Doku is a great dribbler, Guardiola’s side have more of the ball than usual, exposing him to transfers; and the form of Rúben Dias has suffered a major loss.
But perhaps the most interesting thing is the reliance on Stones, who has been restricted this season to 257 minutes of league action over four games. Guardiola’s football, based on his team-first philosophy, should in theory reduce the focus on individuals, but Stones has emerged as crucial as he appears to be the only player in the squad who able to fulfill the hybrid central defensive- holding midfield role. Manuel Akanji has struggled with that role and it was notable on Sunday that Guardiola was pushing Akanji back into the defensive line, as he faced a front three that stayed tall.
That fits with one of the basic principles of Cruyff’s theory which underpins Guardiola’s thinking, that the opposition should always have one more defender than the opposition, but by drawing Akanji deeper, Guardiola made him a making it easier for Spurs to play through midfield. . That’s where Julian Álvarez presents a quandary. There is no doubting his quality, and he has four goals and five assists this season, but the use of himself and Haaland weakens the midfield – which is why a defender was needed to step up in the first place.
What is interesting is that this is the type of position and balance game where Guardiola usually excels. It will surely find a solution sooner rather than later – and the return of Stones soon and then, probably in late January, Kevin De Bruyne will help. But right now City’s shift to a more direct style seems to have left them vulnerable in a way they haven’t been in years.
On this day
Some goals are special because of the power of the strike, some because of the deftness of the football, others because of the complexity of the move before them, and some because they are unlike anything you have seen before or since. Everyone knew that Alessandro Del Piero was a great prospect. Juventus had signed him from Padova the previous summer, and he scored a hat-trick against Parma on his full debut. But it was his goal against Fiorentina on 4 December 1994 that made him truly special.
In part it was the context. Fiorentina went 2-0 up in the first half, but Gianluca Vialli’s goal in the 74th and 79th minutes leveled the scores. Then, with six minutes remaining, left back Alessandro Orlando sent a long ball into the box just inside the Fiorentina half. With Del Piero walking forward, the natural thing to do was to take the ball down and perhaps try to win a corner or a penalty from one of the two Fiorentina defenders in pursuit. Instead, he hit a powerful flicked volley with the outside of his right foot that flashed past Francesco Toldo, confirming his status as a genius.
This is an excerpt from Jonathan Wilson’s Soccer, the Guardian US’s weekly look at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Do you have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition
