The numbers behind Man City's recent struggles

Manchester City are not in crisis. They are only five points behind Arsenal at the top of the Premier League table - a smaller gap than after 17 matches of last season – and we all know Pep Guardiola’s side tend to move through the gears in spring.

But “crisis” is a relative term, and by Guardiola’s standards this is more than a wobble.

Man City’s total of 34 points is their lowest after 17 matches since Guardiola’s appointment, meaning 2023/24 is statistically his worst start to a campaign in England.

City's points after 17 matches

That is enough for alarm bells to ring and suggest they might not keep the crown.

Man City’s recent stumble makes comeback difficult

In 2020/21 they won the title despite only winning 35 points from the first 17, but their final tally was only 86, which is the lowest league-winning total since Leicester City’s 81 in 2015/16.

Around the 87-point mark sounds about right this year (that’s the average league-leaders Arsenal are hitting so far), but if Man City were to lose at Goodison Park in their next Premier League fixture on 27 December they would soon hit the halfway mark requiring 50 points from the final 19 matches to reach 87.

That’s a centurion-season average during the second half of the campaign. Does this incarnation of Man City really have it in them to hit those numbers?

They have won only 16 points from their last 11 league matches and have never had an 11-match sequence under Guardiola as poor as that.

They have won five fewer points and conceded 20 more goals and scored 40 fewer than at this stage last season (45 scored, 16 conceded). They have also made eight errors leading to an opposition shot, which is the same total as across the whole of last season.

Premier League

Position Pos	Club	Played Pl	GD	Points Pts
1	Man City MCI	38	+62	91
2	Arsenal ARS	38	+62	89
3	Liverpool LIV	38	+45	82
4	Aston Villa AVL	38	+15	68

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If that wasn’t enough evidence to suggest a winning streak in 2024 is far from guaranteed, then we should look again at the 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa.

Focus has rightly been on Villa’s brilliance, but what we saw from Man City was unprecedented: two shots on goal, the final one coming in the 11th minute, and the most shots ever conceded by a Guardiola team in 535 matches.

We have not been here before. What has happened to Man City?

Many pundits have suggested City are suffering a hangover following last year’s Treble, that their mild slump is the result of relaxed shoulders and a subconscious difficulty motivating themselves when there are no worlds left to conquer.

Perhaps. But there is more to it than that.

Losing midfield control

The underlying numbers show what the eye test suggests: Man City have not been in control of matches in quite the same way.

At times they look hurried and too open – like the 4-4 draw with Chelsea, a basketball match in which the midfield emptied out – and at others City struggle to get to grips, getting stuck in their own third or moving too quickly into the final third.

Their progressive passes per 90 are down from 54.6 per match 1st, to 48.6 5th, and their possession share has dropped from 64.7 per cent to 62.2 per cent.

Their “direct speed”, an Opta measure of how quickly a team move the ball upfield, has risen quite dramatically from 0.98 in 2022/23 to 1.28.

The Team Style Comparison graphic below shows the scale of that movement.

This is backed up by the number of Man City’s touches and where in the field they take place. They have fewer overall compared with 2022/23 and yet more overall in the final third and fewer in the middle third.

What has caused that loss of control and subsequent run of one win from six? The answer is threefold.

Gundogan and De Bruyne are big losses

It goes without saying that Kevin de Bruyne has been a huge loss. His most intelligent creative moments work against the grain, suddenly disrupting the rhythmic patterns of Guardiola football that have lulled the opponent to sleep.

Without him, City can be a little predictable. They certainly lack that spark in the final third, hence why their crosses are down from 19.5 to 16.5 per game and their switches of play are down from 4.66 to 2.76.

But Ilkay Gundogan is arguably just as missed. He averaged 13 Premier League goal contributions in each of his final three years at the Etihad and so far Mateo Kovacic has not replaced those numbers.

Gundogan was superb at arriving late in a move to score and he had the capacity to flit seamlessly between anchoring midfield alongside Rodri and bursting forward like a No 8.

City no longer have a player in that mould, while their back-to-back defeats during Rodri’s suspension also shows they lack adequate backup for the Spaniard. All-in-all, Man City’s midfield was downgraded over the summer.

Guardiola’s full-back revolution might be a problem

It is sacrilege to doubt Guardiola’s tactical innovations. Nobody in the world so consistently moves the game forward, and when he got rid of his full-backs altogether – to play four centre-backs – Man City went on a brilliant run that ended with the treble.

But what was good for post-World Cup football, when exhausted players slogged through bruising and low-tempo Premier League matches, is not necessarily what’s good for a 2023/24 season defined so far by furious pressing and tonnes of goals.

What Man City lack this year is an inverted full-back who, operating alongside Rodri, has the technical ability to weave away from the press and play a creative forward pass.

John Stones and Manuel Akanji both lack these press-evading and progressive qualities, and arguably it has caused City’s blockage: the downturn both in midfield touches and the waves of attacking certainty we were so used to seeing.

In years gone by Joao Cancelo inverted from left-back to provide a creative spark. In 2022/23 he averaged 7.46 progressive passes and 5.07 progressive carries per match, as well as 2.76 shot-creating actions per game.

In sharp contrast, this year Stones averages only 2.20 progressive passes, 0.98 progressive carries, and 1.22 shot-creating actions. Akanji is doing only slightly better, hitting 4.25 progressive passes, 1.33 progressive carries, and 1.50 shot-creating actions.

The purpose of using an extra centre-back is defensive solidity, but it comes at the expense of dynamism. Considering where Man City sit in the table, it no longer seems to be working.

Haaland disconnection exacerbated by De Bruyne injury

Finally, there is an issue developing up front.

Erling Haaland hasn’t been moulded into a typical Guardiola centre-forward. He isn’t dropping deep to link the play and hasn’t notably improved outside the penalty area. In fact, this season he is averaging 20.2 touches per 90, the fewest touches  of his league career to date.

Equally, Man City haven’t adapted to Haaland. Their “direct speed” has risen due to those midfield issues but that does not translate into a more vertically inclined team who look to use the transitions to set Haaland away.

They have only had 19 direct attacks this season and, as ever, top the charts for passes per sequence (5.37), hence their position all alone on the far right of the above “Team Style” graphic.

Without Gundogan or an equivalent to link Haaland to the midfield, and without a dynamic inverted full-back to do the same, Haaland is a little isolated and, again, Man City miss something vital in their middle-third play.

This, of course, is exacerbated by De Bruyne’s injury. Haaland is a penalty-box poacher who needs delivery, and last season De Bruyne’s 226 crosses accounted for 30 per cent of the squad’s total.

The brilliance of De Bruyne

Their second-most prolific crosser, with 96, was Riyad Mahrez, another creative player whose absence is felt. He averaged 16.5 goals and assists per season across seven years at Man City but was not replaced in the summer.

Jeremy Doku, on the opposite wing, is yet to assist Haaland in the Premier League.  

Put all that together, and you have a possibly hungover Man City team missing De Bruyne, Gundogan, and Mahrez; missing Cancelo or an equivalent inventive full-back in midfield; and struggling to adapt to having a pure finisher in Haaland at the top end.

Guardiola may have another trick up sleeve

But perhaps that is being overdramatic. After all, according to Opta’s computer-simulated conversion of xG into expected points they “should” be second with 32.71 points, only two behind leaders Arsenal on 34.82.

Nevertheless, that isn’t the impression you get from watching Man City this season.

We are in Guardiola’s eighth year at the helm, twice as long as he spent at Barcelona before resigning, exhausted, in 2012.

There is no indication that will happen at City, but should their poor form go on much longer it will be time to question whether the Guardiola era is winding down.

Manchester City

Sat 13 Apr
(H)

5 - 1 W

Thu 25 Apr
(A)

0 - 4 W

Sun 28 Apr
(A)

0 - 2 W

Sat 04 May
(H)

5 - 1 W

Sat 11 May
(A)

0 - 4 W

One of two things will happen. We will witness the beginning of the end, or Guardiola will revolutionise the game all over again and Man City will surge to a record-breaking fourth consecutive title.

Despite all their problems, the latter is just as likely as the former.