Manchester City vs Southampton Preview

Premier League GW9

On a weekend that sees Liverpool take on Arsenal, Manchester City host another team in the relegation zone to either keep up the pace or return to the top of the table. Their last home match before a run of four away fixtures across three competitions, the team won’t play another home match after today until they return from the November International break.

Previous Results

• Manchester City are second in the Premier League, having not lost this season. They come into the match off two wins against Fulham (H) 3-2 and Wolves (A) 1-2.

• Southampton has not yet won a Premier League match. Coming into this match, they lost the last two against Arsenal (A) 3-1 and Leicester City (H) 2-3.

Notable Injuries:

• Manchester City is without Rodri (knee), Oscar Bobb (ankle), Kyle Walker (knee), Jack Grealish (other), Jeremy Doku (other), and Kevin De Bruyne.

• Southampton is without Gavin Bazunu (Achilles), Ross Stewart (calf), and William Smallbone (thigh). Jack Stephens and Ryan Fraser also miss out due to suspension. Yukinari Sugawara will face a late fitness test.

Interesting Southampton Stats:

• Only Wolves (23) have conceded more goals than Southampton (18) this season. Only Crystal Palace (5) have scored fewer than Southampton (6).

• Southampton, Wolves, and Brentford are all yet to keep a clean sheet in the Premier League.

• No team has conceded more goals from corners than Southampton (5).

• Only Liverpool and Manchester City have completed more short passes than Southampton.

• Southampton have had the most errors leading to a shot (10) and errors leading to a goal (6) this season.

Despite their poor form in the league, Southampton do have plenty of capable players across the pitch. Tyler Dibling is a talented winger who’ll go into later on. Taylor Harwood-Bellis will move to another Premier League club if Southampton are relegated, young English ball-playing CBs are not easy to come by. Cameron Archer is an exciting young forward who likes to drift out to the left side, well-rounded as a finisher and he’ll quickly identify the space to attack should Southampton manage to counterattack. Lesley Ugochukwu is a quick and powerful box-to-box midfielder on loan from Chelsea, similar to Lavia in being press-resistant and breaking lines passing forward. Whether the manager can make the changes required tactically to get the most out of this group is another question, but they are certainly capable enough as a squad to stay up (just about…).

It’s a common point of discussion for a manager regardless of their position in the table, or level of the squad, that if you are doing poorly should you decide to completely shift your entire coaching philosophy for results. From a coaching perspective, as Guardiola mentions above, the answer is always no because straight away the players will realize everything they’ve been learning before, you’ve never fully believed in.

However, it’s the details that absolutely can be expected to change. We’ve only recently seen Fulham and Wolves play a low-block but there was a huge difference between the two of them.

In Southampton’s case, if any team was playing out from the back with their CBs as narrow as they were in the opening few matches then they would also suffer when pressed. If any team was pressing like Southampton with Cameron Archer far too aggressive and further ahead than the rest of the team then they would also struggle to recover the ball and stop the opposition from progressing. Details matter.

If you’re looking for some more content on Southampton then I recommend this thread for Euro Expert as he watched back the match against Brentford. Covering their issues playing out from the back and struggling to threaten when they did progress the ball.

Manchester City must nail the press when Southampton builds out from the back, they’ll get the opportunities to force high turnovers just as every team has done against Southampton this season. It’s no surprise that they are 3rd in the Premier League for most short passes completed. They are expected to play it short and build up through the press.

They must get the jumping right from midfield, we’ve seen against Fulham that Kovacic struggled to time that, Jimenez was dropping without a City CB following him and Foden wasn’t picking up Lukic when he came across to support Traore.

Savinho and Nunes are more than capable of covering the distances you normally see from the full-back and central defender of Southampton. The goal scored against West Ham (A) earlier in the season is the ideal situation, playing the quick pass into Haaland after recovering the ball.

There are plenty of genuine concerns to be had as a Manchester City fan watching the team, one of which is the xG value of shots on average. It’s low quality but it’s been a lot of low blocks lately that give you the volume of half chances that could bring that average down. Not to mention the injuries to De Bruyne and Rodri but it is something to keep an eye on.

For most of the underlying metrics, Manchester City are slightly improved or slightly behind as you’ll see in the graphic below.

There haven’t been as many high turnovers as last season, despite the PPDA dropping down, the team averages 6.0 compared to 10.9 last season. The number of long passes completed per match has dropped from 43.5 to 32.2 which is to be expected with De Bruyne and Rodri out injured. De Bruyne has averaged 6.1 per 90 across his career at City, Rodri 9.6 per 90.

It’s early in the season but I mentioned before that during 23/24 Ruben Dias was in general below his usual level for aerial duels. When he’s being aggressive up against the opposition forward to win the ball in the air. This season he’s winning 1.97 per 90 the second highest in his City career, with his highest win percentage ever 73.7%. Ruben Dias also leads the Premier League for most touches and progressive carrying distance. 4th for passes into the final third.

Southampton have conceded the most goals from corners this season, in the last match Manchester City played they changed their approach to push the opposition into their 6-yard box before springing out as the ball was delivered. Looking back at the recent games of Southampton, the goals conceded from a corner, leave the near-post quite exposed with only one player on it and they‘ll leave space on the top of the box.

Final Predictions

Ones to Watch: 

Tyler Dibling for Southampton is a real talent who came through their academy, got his move to Chelsea (2023) at 17 but returned after not settling in. In the Southampton team, he’s 2nd for progressive carries (24), 1st for passes into the penalty area (9), 1st for shot-creating actions (22), 1st for successful take-ons (11), and 1st for carries into the penalty area (10).

With Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku out with injuries, along with Oscar Bobb long-term, Savinho needs to be in the team. The aggression we saw from him against Sparta, to continue pushing in the final third, his willingness to provide quality crosses on his weaker foot, and his determination to score are exactly what the team needs right now. Don’t be surprised when his output explodes.

Predicted Lineup:

Predicted Score: Manchester City 4 - 0 Southampton

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