Brentford 2-2 Manchester City Review

Premier League GW21

The trend of coming away from a Manchester City match, not knowing if you saw an improvement, continues after the draw against Brentford. For all the promising signs going forward, the play into and off Haaland to attack, the team left spaces in midfield to expose, unorganized defending of their box, and slowness in closing down crosses. With or without new signings, is the team heading in the right direction?

MOTM: KEVIN DE BRUYNE

Most key passes (8), progressive passes (10), passes into the penalty area (9), crosses into the penalty area (2), and progressive carries (8) for Manchester City in this match. Provided that cross for the first goal, and should have had another. De Bruyne in the final third looking back to his best.

Notable Stats:

• Brentford's Bryan Mbuemo has scored 13 league goals from an xG of just 6.25, giving him an overperformance of 6.75, the biggest of any player across Europe's big 5 leagues.

• Yoane Wissa has now scored more Premier League goals for Brentford (37) than any other player in the competition’s history.

• Phil Foden has scored two Premier League goals in a single match, for the first time since West Ham (H) last season.

Game Stats:

Brentford 2-2 Manchester City

• xG: 2.47 - 2.48

• xThreat: 1.83 - 1.93

• Possession: 44.8% - 55.2%

• Field Tilt: 29.9% - 70.1%

• Penalty Box Shots: 16 - 15

• Deep Entries: 20 - 24

• PPDA: 12.0 - 16.8

• High Turnovers: 3 - 5

If you want to stay up-to-date on individual player minutes, back four combinations, underlying numbers, and more, check out the live Google sheet below. 👇

Here is how the two teams lined up on Tuesday evening, with Brentford not playing Schade, and Manchester making one change to their last Premier League starting eleven. starting Matheus Nunes RB. This was a change I thought was possible, knowing that Brentford would like to go long and test our backline, a big show of trust from Guardiola to include Nunes.

Manchester City built up with their CBs and FBs spreading wide, which made it difficult for Brentford to press high, Bernardo/Kovacic would pull their markers wide, and open up the central lane into Erling Haaland from Ortega. We saw that in moments in the first half, but the team continued to exploit that route more in the second half.

You saw Manchester City press high in a 4-4-2 early in the first half, but once Brentford shifted to going long most of the team, you didn’t see many of those situations at all. Instead where Brentford found success playing through City was when recovering the ball in their half, City's counter-press was slow, and Wissa/Mbeumo came over to overload on one side.

P. Foden 78' 1-0

One of the positives in the performance against Brentford was the distribution to, and hold-up play from Erling Haaland. From there Manchester City could then attack. They wanted Brentford to press high, spread out the defenders to increase the distance to cover, and have their midfielders (man-marked) move out wide to clear the lane.

Savinho collects and plays the pass out wide in front of De Bruyne to run onto. Phil Foden and Erling make runs into the box (2v2) and De Bruyne delivers the chance on a plate for Foden to score.

Similar position to this cross Nunes delivered in the first half and Haaland headed right at Flekken.

P. Foden 2-0 

Savinho does well to win the ball high up the pitch and break toward Brentford's goal, in what highlights another one of the positives for Manchester City against Brentford, the number of runners to attack in transition and arrive into the box. A shot from Savinho is saved but the rebound is scored by Foden, who gets his reward for the run he made.

The Brentford match is another reminder that Savinho will by himself creating several chances, for himself and others to score. It's about the final pass/shot as everything leading up to it is excellent.

Y. Wissa 82' 2-1 

Being organized is vital to defending in your box, and throughout this sequence, Akanji and Ake are both unsure as to who is marking Wissa. You simply cannot allow those players time/space in the 6-yard box. Let alone the time to cross (Foden/Gundo), or have Bernardo defending the back post.

So it should not come as a surprise that this is where Manchester City ranks among Premier League teams.

C. Norgaard 90'+2 2-2 

Along with being organized defending your box, you have to be tight to players to win the aerial duel which Akanji is not when the ball comes in for Norgaard. The other real standout problem behind Manchester City's struggling to defend well in their box is how easy it is to get crosses in. From the top of the box, as seen for the first goal, and out wide. In this one Savinho comes out with no real intensity and Lewis-Potter has all the time to come inside to cross. Something that Nunes/McAtee did well at on the RHS. Perhaps a substitute was also needed for Savinho.

Minus the chance Matheus Nunes wasted in the first half, I thought he had a good performance for his second start as a full-back. When you think about the physicality, ground coverage, competition in duels, and crossing Nunes can provide, there isn’t a reason ‘on paper’ why he can’t do well there. Whether we see that potential uncovered is another matter.

This game did highlight again that the team lacks an organizer in the back line and Ruben Dias is exactly that type of player. As well as the continued struggles of Gundogan/Kovacic playing in midfield. The team had some good periods of the game with Brentford boxed in, but the player at the top of the box to shift the opposition around was Kovacic. A role he’s just not suited to. The best attacking work came from De Bruyne moving out to the flanks to create, or the transitions built back to front.

There were more than enough chances to kill the match before Brentford made their comeback, perhaps the arrival of Marmoush, and the return of Oscar Bobb will add more killers in the box to take those chances.

Finally, it has to be said the team should have managed the game better. Guardiola should have managed the game better. McAtee and Nunes did well to stop Brentford from progressing down the RHS, but Savinho made little effort to stop the cross coming in for Brentford to equalize, Doku/Grealish should have been on instead.

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Moving Forward

Manchester City remain in the top four race, and until we see the full extent of their business in the transfer market it’s tough to make a call on how likely that is. But we have seen this season all the ‘contenders’ for those spots have not been perfect, all have had bad patches and so many more twists are still to come.

The issue of other players providing goals and assists, especially with the likelihood of Oscar Bobb being back soon, Foden finding his form, and Marmoush signing seems to be going away. But the problems are still there in midfield, and the back line. Not every City fan is confident that a midfielder will arrive. 👇

Ruben Dias is back in training, when you look back at the goals conceded against Brentford they stem from being poorly organized and not defending your box well enough. That’s everything that Ruben Dias stands for.

A longer newsletter looking at Vitor Reis is on the way, in the meantime, you can check out one on Abdukodir Khusanov if you haven’t already. 👇

Based on the way the club is operating in the transfer market, I don’t think a midfielder is being ignored, rather that deal is yet to be leaked and is being left to last. Can’t see the club being this well organized in the market, having three signings essentially done, another lined up, and not being aware of the need for a midfielder.

It broke last night that Andrea Cambiaso is a target for Manchester City, that a contract with the player is virtually agreed, and talks with Juventus will follow in the next couple of days. Below is an insightful thread on the player, he looks up to Joao Cancelo as someone he models his game around, and is very much the type of inverted full-back you’d expect Pep Guardiola to want. 👇

Perhaps the best till last, Erling Haaland extends his stay at Manchester City until 2034.

“Now I am City no matter what. I will do everything I can to try and get close to the PL record in the future.” - Erling Haaland

Next up for Manchester City is Ipswich Town (A) on Sunday the 19th of January, at 16:30 GMT. A preview of the match will be published on Saturday.