- Aug 25, 2011
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Just for a little perspective, Wolves also beat Man City 2-1 this season. A Man City team that are nine years into their project.
They also conceded a very similar goal to us where a sloppy dispossession led to Neto running the length of the pitch down the righthand side.
Unlike us though, Man City actually failed to break down Wolves from play at any stage in the game and actually required a wonder freekick to score their goal. Man City created very little at all in the game and just resorted to pop shots from distance in desperation. I'd actually argue that Man City actually struggled even more than us against them.
Below is Gary O Neill discussing how he set up Wolves to nullify City, and I imagine many of the same principles would've been used against us. I can remember O' Neill actually talking about Ange's tactics later in the show but couldn't find any footage unfortunately.
The moral of the story though is that its no great shame in losing to one of the best organised teams in the league atm and Ange shouldn't have to hang his head in shame for losing to them, particularly when you consider he was without his two crucial full backs.
I remember what he said.
He basically said that Spurs are really difficult to stop as they don't have specific patterns or movements.
Players pop up in spaces you don't anticipate.
Whereas City are more structured with their system but difficult to stop cause they are so good and one little mistake or loss of concentration and they punish you.
I think that last part is where we have problems.
I watched some of the game back and a few situations we got the ball into a good area but we made a mess of the first pass or touch that would have put us into a really good chance to create.
For example, Richarlison received the ball in between the def lines. Son and Deki were in a line but all starting to come in and it was a 3v3.
There was space but Richarlison tried to quick touch pass to Son (I think) and it went behind him.
Little details like that often go missed cause we tend to focus on the overall performance.
But even if we had been 5% sharper in those instances, we probably would have created much more and who knows. It then becomes a good win in a tough game.
Like Arsenal were doing before Xmas.
I just think we lack that sharpness.
Perhaps players have also lost that cohesion they had earlier.