Man City’s 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa highlighted creativity problems as well as inability to control counter-attacks | Football News happymamay

Manchester City were beaten at Villa Park last season too, but if that defeat was a surprise, the most worrying thing about the 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa is that it was almost expected. The villa was stronger, faster, and better organized.

John Doran and Morgan Rogers have real quality with the ball at their feet, but Aston Villa’s scorers also embody a physicality that seems completely absent from City’s game at the moment. Not only do they look weak, they also look slow.

This was evident in the opening seconds of the match when John McGinn succeeded in snatching the ball away from Josko Gvardiol, and Doran almost repeated the feat with Stefan Ortega in the second half as Aston Villa convincingly beat the reigning Premier League champions.

City looked vulnerable to counter-attacks all the time, which has become the new normal for this team. But trying to explain this decline in form due to Rodri’s absence is no longer applicable when so many aspects of their game fail to work.

Manchester City This doesn’t create enough chances.

City fans chanted sarcastically: “We have scored a goal” when Phil Foden reduced the deficit late on. Rival fans are unlikely to have much sympathy for the four-time defending champions’ plight just yet, but they have a point.

City have scored just 10 goals in their last nine Premier League matches over a period dating back two months. Surprisingly, only Leicester City, Everton and Southampton have scored fewer goals in that time. All this from a team that still boasts Erling Haaland up front.

The Norwegian bears responsibility for this scoring decline on his shoulders. “I look at myself first, I didn’t score the chances I had. I have to do better because this is not good enough.” It’s now two goals in eight Premier League matches.

“I don’t agree with him,” Pep Guardiola said when Haaland’s comments were brought up after the match. “Without him, we would be worse off.” Having recently suggested that cover options for Haaland are Phil Foden and Oscar Pope, he is almost certainly right.

The matter is not as simple as Haaland’s performance deteriorating. His 13 goals this season came from a total expected goals ratio of 13.21. In other words, he’s underperformed a bit based on the type of opportunities coming his way – but not by much.

The biggest difference compared to previous seasons is that Haaland does not get the opportunities that were available to him before. His expected goals total of 0.78 per 90 minutes is high but not as high as last season (1.03) or the season before that (0.92). This is a particular concern.

City’s attacking style of play now relies heavily on feeding Haaland, even if he touches the ball so rarely that it may not look that way at times. There was a time when the team’s wingers were burdened with too many goals. Now they are supposed to supply it.

As a strategy, this led to two more Premier League titles as well as the Champions League title that City had been craving. But it follows that they have become more predictable. There aren’t a lot of different ways they can hurt teams right now.

Riyad Mahrez scored 15 goals in his final season with City, compared to 24 the year before. When the Algerian entered the field and prepared to launch the ball, the crowd expected the goal. When Jack Grealish did the same thing against Aston Villa, he almost hit the corner flag.

Grealish, who had space to operate against his former club but failed to capitalize on, has not scored for Manchester City in more than a year. Savinho is still waiting for his first goal with City. Raheem Sterling has a habit of scoring a lot of easy goals at the back post. no more.

Haaland may only have two goals in his last eight Premier League games, but no teammate has outdone him in that time. Gvardiol is the only other player to have found the back of the net more than once. The Defender’s contributions are not only a welcome addition but are now necessary.

He no longer scores enough, and he no longer creates enough. How did this happen? The way to stop them has become very clear. At Villa, it was clear that Unai Emery’s side were relatively comfortable with City in front of them, slowly moving the ball from side to side.

They need to move it faster and they need to move off the ball. Ilkay Gundogan was once a master of it, but it’s hard to expect a 34-year-old midfielder to continue making those runs out of the back line. Bernardo Silva also looks tired.

The result is that while both Guardiola and Emery pointed to the period in the first half when City looked to build some momentum, the result is that they still did not create enough chances to deserve anything from this game. once again.

The expected goals total of 1.03 highlights that this is not an aberration caused by poor finishing. City scored exactly the number of goals at Villa that their creativity justified – as was the case when they lost 2-1 to Manchester United (expected goals: 0.95).

It is the first time this season that City have created so little in successive matches and raises the worrying thought for Guardiola that things could get worse. How can he hope to make this team more creative when they are already conceding so much?

“I have to find the solution, the balance to create opportunities.” The fear is that with the loss of one key player and the passage of time robbing him of a few other players, he is left with a team that can no longer function as it should. On both ends of the field.