admin Manchester City have dominated their last two matches with almost 60 shots in two encounters – but “only”scored six goals.
Manchester City set a new Champions League record on Tuesday night after registering an incredible 22 shots on target in the first half against RedStar in the Champions League. However, the only goal of the match at halftime came from the awayteam.
It was almost thesame story as the previous matchagainst West Ham. City had all the chances, missed acoupleofgoalkeepers, but were 1-0 down at the break. Pep Guardiola said his players were angry inthefirsthalf at London Stadium, before turning thesituation around to win 3-1. Three days later, there was less anger in the dressing room but therewasstill a desire to turn thesituation around and the resultwasthe same throughoutthematch.
Inmatchesbetween West Ham and Red Star,Man City scorednearly 60 shots on goal. Yes, they got6, but an11% conversion rate on 56 attemptsseemsunusually wasteful. It appears no team has matched City’s 22 first-half efforts on Tuesday in Europe as they failedto even score.
Before considering why City waste so much– if that’s the right word – it’s worth pointing out that Guardiola himself doesn’tcare.It never willbe, as long as opportunities are created. Remember when he called the 1-1 draw against Nottingham Forest one of Man City’s best performances of the season last year?
“Inthe last two games, I don’t know how many chances we missed,” Guardiola said unfazed on Tuesday.“We played verywell but didn’t score any goals.We were consistent and eventually won the match. Having 22 shots on target means you’re playing verywell.
56 shots this week means an attempt every three minutes, with ashot on target (31 total) every five minutes. Arateof 55 per “purposeful”shotmight be better, but it’snot the end of the world.Thisis a ratio of 1 in 5 shots on target leadingto a goal, due to a combination of many factors.
It’s also worth remembering that City won both games by a two-goal margin, scoring three goals in each game and recovering at half-time with goals inthe40th and 80thsecondof the second half to take thelead. It’s not that they played badly. “He [Guardiola] isnot angry after what he saw in the first half,”Rodri said after Red Star. “He was a bit upset that we wereresponsibleforscoring one of those important chances.He sent his message and gave us confidence and reassurance.”
Expected goals figures also confirm that City have delivered on the quality of the chances created. Against West Ham, their “xG” was between 3.10 and 3.34 depending on who collected the data.This only narrowly met expectations, while it was a similar story with Red Star where City’s xG was 3.76 to 4.45. As soon as Julian Alvarez scored his second on Tuesday, the game was won.
In both matches, City were guilty of missing clear-cut opportunities that would have led to ariseinxG,beforeattemptstoscoreledtolowergoalexpectations. Jeremy Doku’s equalizer and Bernardo Silva’s goal for West Ham were both smart finishes with plenty of work to do, after Erling Haaland inexplicably hit the far post from six yards.meter and obediently pushed anattempt closer towards the striker.can be deleted. There would havebeen no investigationif Haaland scored both goals instead of Doku and Bernardo scoring.
Haaland was unlucky to see Red Star’s header from 6 yards go over the crossbar, while Phil Foden headed straight at Omri Glazer from 5 yards. The Red Star goalkeeper faced 16 shots on target and played a key role in keeping the scoreline low – but he then managed to fire Alvarez’s free-kick into the back of the net goal, while d’Alvarez’s first goal and Rodri’s third goal were not simple. Once again the team stepped up their efforts as Haaland did everything but score.
Even substitute goalkeeper Stefan Ortega played an important role against Red Star, telling Rodri at half-time that Glazer looked shaky when blocking low shots or trying in situations. corner kick situation. Rodri took full advantage by launching a low effort into the bottom corner to end the match.
Haaland could have scored at least five goals in his last two matches, but he only managed two thanks to a mixture of bad misses, misplaced crossbars and inspired goalkeeping. Meanwhile, Alvarez has 2 goals and 2 assists in matches, with 3 goals and 3 assists in the last 3 matches. As usual, when it doesn’t happen for someone at City, it’s someone else’s turn to make the news.
Guardiola said Alvarez was ‘almost unshakable’ after West Ham scored two goals in the Champions League. His position behind Haaland has resulted in a goal or assist per game this season, with the ‘number ten’ position delivering the best results for the World Cup winner.Eight shots and seven chances created against Red Star made him the third player to reach double figures in a Champions League match after Karim Benzema and Arjen Robben.
“I have played in this position many times at different stages in my career, at River Plate and for the Argentina national team,” he said after his double. “A bit deeper, he’s not a central striker, but I try to move around to find space to be another playing option and also attack.”
Guardiola said: “Playing behind Erling, he poses an incredible threat. We need players close to Erling, let’s not put all the responsibility on Erling to score goals.” That was the case this week.
There was also Rodri, who added goal threat to his repertoire and made five attempts against Red Star. It wasn’t just Haaland who missed opportunities festival, and the positive thing is that Man City had 5 different scorers in the If it weren’t for two (mostly) inspired goalkeeper performances, Haaland probably would have won another ball and Man City would have scored more goals
Former Man City goalkeeper David James summed up the situation from the opposition’s perspective when he said: ” It was the kind of performance that will make Nottingham Forest and Newcastle say, ‘wait, goalkeepers have made more than 25 saves in the last two matches against Man City – what are we going to do?’ to stop them from creating more such opportunities?And that number doesn’t even include shots that missed the target. »
