Misfiring Manchester City Beat Leicester

There will be easier games for Manchester City in this season and in many ways this victory in the Carabao Cup feels more important than the performance.

Football matches are often like music in that they have a definite rhythms. Sometimes they can be like two heavyweight boxers knocking lumps out of each other, sometimes they can be counter attacking rallies like in a tennis game. Usually Manchester City are like an orchestra and Pep Guardiola manages to get all the various parts playing together and we get to experience rising crescendos.

Against Leicester, we played more like a primary school orchestra than the Halle. Many of the notes were present but in the words of Eric Morecambe, were not necessarily in the right order. The timing was off and consequently we struggled to find any meaningful rhythm.

That’s not altogether a surprise given Manchester City had made 8 changes to the team which started against Everton. In came Sergio Aguero, Oleks Zinchenko, John Stones, Aro Muric, Phil Foden, Riyad Mahrez and Kevin De Bruyne. Eric Garcia started at centre back making his full debut for the Club at just 17 years of age.

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City started brightly against a much changed Leicester side but with such a combination of youth and players returning from injury, they misfired.

Stones played in defensive midfield, and whilst he was confident on the ball, he always received it with his back to the opposing goal, so linked with the defence but not the attack. Although it seems cruel to criticise him for not being Fernandinho, he did not succeed in turning over the play which contributed to the staccato rhythm.

De Bruyne made the goal with a piece of individual skill, as he stepped into space and scored from outside the area. Unbelievably this was his first City goal since April. He gave glimpses of quality but needs two or three games to reach his level.

Foden was busy and controlled and continues to impress. Aguero needs games to reach top speed and may not be ready to face Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Leicester equalized in the second half from a fairly simple move which exploited Zinchenko at left back. He abandoned his position and left Leicester clean through and Marc Albrighton capitalised.

Both sides seemed to settle for the draw and penalties. This where 2 things came into play. Firstly the increasingly tall Muric had the chance to intimidate Leicester players. He filled the goal and their soft penalties were the result of his Jedi mind tricks. Secondly, we clearly practice penalties and looked remarkably calm. Although at this point I shall not say a word about Sterling.

So we did not play well, we blooded youth, we got some important minutes on the pitch for Sergio and Kevin. And we are in the semi finals and a short (two legged) step away from Wembley and Manchester City potentially retaining a title for the first time in their history.

Next. Leicester 1 Manchester City 1 Player Ratings. dark

So there were a lot of positives which probably see out the negatives. The worry for me is that a number of our star players didn’t really put in a shift, but as long as that is changed on Saturday then I have no complaints. As a City fan I always worry about momentum and malaise. It’s time we got back on track and thrashed someone.

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