Man City's failure is no longer a surprise. However, despite Pep Guardiola's efforts to change everything, the result was still a disappointment. The defense kept making mistakes. John Stones has returned but Ruben Dias cannot participate. The lack of progress and success in each match has harmed Man City for the past 2 months, causing them now to face the prospect of not being able to end the season in the Top 4.
However, the weakness of the defense is not the only factor. The sleepy, disjointed and uncoordinated attack has harmed Man City. The strange thing is that a line of naturalists who have transformed in previous years under Pep's hands is now monotonous and surprisingly easy to predict.
During the match, Erling Haaland only had 1 touch in the opponent's penalty area, even that only came in the 89th minute. Meanwhile, Jack Grealish received 16 passes to the left wing in the first half alone. This shows how helpless Man City are in directly struggling against the Aston Villa defense.
The continuous "mental pinning" against Aston Villa and some previous matches has exposed all of Manchester City's weaknesses. During Pep Guardiola's 8 years in charge at Eithad Stadium, Man City is world-famous for being the team that dominated the opponent's third of the field with the familiar 3-2-5 formation.
Man City kept this style of play against Aston Villa. When the visitors had the ball, Rico Lewis moved in as usual. Meanwhile, Ilkay Gundogan, instead of playing deep, approached the opponent's penalty area like a striker. Phil Foden plays the "number 10" role while Jack Grealish and Bernardo Silva hold the two wings.
To block this plan, Villa deployed their players to block any passes from the defenders below. John McGinn was tasked with breaking in from the right and blocking the pass to Mateo Kovacic. Youri Tielemans was also given a similar task when Man City started deploying the formation in the opposite half. Further, Amadou Onana and Boubacar Kamara followed closely to surround Man City's two "number 10s".
With the entire squad locked down like that, Jack Grealish was seen as the only option as he was not surrounded by Aston Villa players. However, Man City may have been wrong to put their trust in Grealish, a striker who has not scored in the Premier League for 371 days.
The English striker had a terrible match. Grealish could not receive and could not coordinate with defenders like Stones or Gvardiol. The situations of holding the ball to the sidelines and trying to cut inside became predictable and harmless.
Man City will not have Rodri from now until the end of the season, so when they plan to deploy a high-altitude formation to attack, based on a 3-2-5 formation, they do not have enough pressure. Therefore, Pep was forced to transfer the task of creating pressure to both wings. Unfortunately, both Silva and Grealish did not meet the requirements, in which Grealish was particularly bad.
Phil Foden's goal to reduce the gap to 1-2 in the 90+3 minute was not enough to help Man City get a point, but at least, it helped the away team's attack recreate the strength that existed in the previous time. It will be a familiar suggestion for Pep Guardiola to calm down once more to prepare for the Everton reception in the middle of this week.
