Antoine Semenyo appeared sprightlier than envisaged when leaving the away dressing room at Tottenham last Sunday. Manchester City had held a debrief in there, where it was impressed on them that there were still 42 points on offer in this title race.
Quite what else you could possibly say after surrendering a two-goal lead at a basket case that had seemed close to putting Thomas Frank out of his misery under a fortnight earlier is anybody’s guess. But irrespective, Semenyo genuinely gave off the impression that Arsenal, six points clear, were catchable.
One of the reasons behind this can only be that City’s goalscoring will not continue to present such an issue moving forward. While exuding surprising positivity, Semenyo did admit that City ought to have been out of sight by half-time and thus not allowing a recent allergy to second halves to flare up. ‘I had a chance and obviously others had chances as well,’ he said.
Semenyo was talking about when Erling Haaland set him away one-on-one with a backpedalling Joao Palhinha in the second minute. His eventual effort was tame but to be fair, there have been more glaring squandered opportunities over the past month. One came shortly after: Haaland – one goal from open play in his last 12 appearances – lobbing over when he had to score.
City finished a half they dominated two goals clear and that was not enough to preserve the points. Many would argue that’s to do with game management and a defensive problem but Pep Guardiola has been going mad at their lack of ruthlessness during a run in the Premier League of one victory from their last six games.
‘Too many clear chances,’ he has said. ‘Easy to score. We had incredible problems defensively with a lack of players but the situation we have is up front. We miss chances that should be goals. With that we’d be in a better position in the Premier League.’
Pep Guardiola has been going mad at Manchester City’s lack of ruthlessness during a run in the Premier League of one victory from their last six games
Erling Haaland has one goal from open play in his last 12 appearances and is just not as clinical at the moment as we are used to
Having studied extended highlights of the half-dozen matches (draws with Sunderland, Chelsea, Brighton and Tottenham, defeat at Manchester United and a win over Wolves), the ‘decent’ missed chance count is at 28. Twenty-eight. And the moment Semenyo discussed at Spurs doesn’t even make the cut.
These range from incidents like at the Stadium of Light on New Year’s Day when Rayan Cherki and Savinho were exchanging crosses to nobody with Sunderland all at sea, to Phil Foden cutting inside two Chelsea defenders 15 yards out and skewing wide.
From Bernardo Silva picking up a loose Yasin Ayari pass inside Brighton’s box and shooting wide rather than squaring for an incredulous Haaland to Max Alleyne’s header at Old Trafford being scrambled off the line.
From Omar Marmoush somehow hitting the far post six yards out after the ball had brushed Yerson Mosquera’s hand in that contentious non-penalty incident to Tijjani Reijnders meeting a Silva cross at Tottenham with his nose instead of head.
Josko Gvardiol not sorting his feet out in front of goal or Marc Guehi effectively standing on the ball as he bore down.
The list goes on, they’re all on it. Six clips for Haaland, five for Cherki. Savinho’s on three from his only appearance of the set. Silva and Reijnders also come in with three apiece.
The six scored in this spell is around three goals shy of their expected number, which is not an exact science but offers a fair prediction of attacking success. Making up that three, spread across separate draws, equates to six points – the gap with Arsenal.
Again, not an exact science yet it does suggest how fine the margins might be. Three chances of those 28 – and so still missing 25 of them – and things look significantly rosier in City’s garden.
Tijjani Reijnders missed an easy chance from 14 yards against Newcastle – but did eventually get on the scoresheet
Savinho has managed to miss three good chances in one appearance in City’s poor run
Guardiola will be buoyed by the three they managed in beating Newcastle United on Wednesday to reach the Carabao Cup final. Marmoush with a couple, Reijnders sweeping in a third. Aside from that, Aaron Ramsdale made a stunning save to deny Haaland – but the big man in full flight would undoubtedly bury it. And Reijnders somehow sidefooted wide from 14 yards.
‘Sometimes it’s unlucky, sometimes maybe it’s the sharpness,’ Reijnders said pointedly. ‘You saw how many spaces we got against Newcastle. We really had some big chances as well and we didn’t even score all of them.’
This comes down to positional play too, not just the finishing. On Wednesday night, Rayan Ait-Nouri buccaneered down the left, Malick Thiaw coming across to block a shot, but could the Algerian have completed an easy cutback instead? The answer is yes and City would have walked it in.
Guardiola is still waiting for some of this new-look City to perfect the art of precision decision-making, a facet of their game that was so reliable for so many years with the usual suspects that the genius of it became lost.
‘We arrive to the edge (of the box), ones against ones, ones against ones many times and we don’t even shoot – and in that we need to improve,’ Guardiola said this week.
Marmoush’s introduction helps, with the Egyptian often letting fly from anywhere, and the use of a box midfield with two strikers might give him more game time.
There has also been some occasional irritation from the manager at playing too safe. Guardiola screamed at Silva down at Spurs for going backwards in midfield rather than progressing the move. In his ninth season with the Catalan, Silva knows the drill: he winced in recognition of his error.
Not a name you’d associate with safe, Cherki has had a couple of these verbal volleys in the past few days. Ait-Nouri was primed for a quick break on Sunday but the Frenchman went backwards, leaving Guardiola exasperated.
Omar Marmoush’s introduction helps, with the Egyptian often letting fly from anywhere, and the use of a box midfield with two strikers might give him more game time
Even Rayan Cherki is coming under fire from Guardiola after going back when he should have gone forwards
Similar happened against Newcastle, Cherki completing a neat pass back towards his defence rather than playing on the turn. Words from the technical area were aimed in his direction.
But those moments aren’t quite as important as the 28. Shave the numbers slightly and City’s outlook is certainly different.
It’s not often you can say a Guardiola team isn’t scoring enough – particularly when no team in the league has found the net more than them this year. Yet here we are.
