Three Takeaways from the Victory Over Southampton

Crossing

There is a famous quote from Albert Einstein that:

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result"

Last season City had a corner issue. We had roughly two billion corners and achieved limited success from any of them. In fact it got to the point where I jokingly suggested the best way to defend against us for 90 minutes is simply to put the ball out for us to get a corner continually.

Our lack of prowess from corners was a combination of things. Firstly and in many ways most crudely it was a simple matter of physical size. Our City side seem to line up like a bunch of hobbits going into battle – always the smallest players and whilst it is not impossible to out jump taller opponents, it stacks the odds because it requires perfect delivery and perfect jumping. Neither of which happens.

Secondly the balls being played into the area tend to be at head height because it is easy to cut out most lower passes. Our height disadvantage tends to mean these balls are easily cleared and instead we are simply looking to win the second and third balls.

Against Southampton – as we did against Norwich, and also to a degree against Wolves – we resorted to crossing the ball with a regularity which confounded the success rates. The balls into the box were largely head height, expecting our diminutive attackers to somehow leap like salmon.

Our success improved though when the crosses were delivered at pace and at or below waist height. Whilst it was good to see Angelino in particular hitting so many crosses, these were not delivered with the precision and accuracy that a fit Mendy has delivered them in the past.