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Man City’s Performance Against Southampton Was Their Worst of the Season
- Updated: October 23, 2016
Not since March 2009 has Pep Guardiola gone five matches without a victory as manager of a football club. After a 10-game winning run at the start of the season, he’s now repeated the feat after Manchester City’s 1-1 draw with Southampton at the Etihad Stadium, a result that saw them fail to capitalise on their rivals’ dropped points the day before. It’s now four weeks since they last tasted victory, a most unusual scenario for Guardiola, who must quickly find a solution.
But it will be the performance that upsets Guardiola the most. Whereas in many of their previous games they have at least shown vibrancy in attack, their draw with Claude Puel’s side was defined by City’s lacklustre forward play.
They failed to produce a single shot on target in the first half—the first time that’s happened all season—and even after a marked improvement in the second period, they managed just three, their lowest tally under Guardiola. Southampton were given an easy ride, and that will annoy the Catalan manager, a man with exacting standards.
Whereas there were positives to take from the draw with Everton when City were magnificent for long periods, and the 4-0 defeat to Barcelona that was turned by a red card for Claudio Bravo, this one offered little cheer. City were somewhat laboured on the ball and didn’t move it with their usual speed. David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne, who went off with an injury at half-time, saw plenty of the ball couldn’t find their usual level of creativity.
Man City have won 20 pts from their opening 9 games this season. That’s 1 fewer than at this stage of 2015-16 under Manuel Pellegrini #PL pic.twitter.com/Jy1xz9Q5BJ
— Sky Sports Statto (@SkySportsStatto) October 23, 2016
“Yeah, we had a little bit of problems to create our build-up, it was slow and when we arrive with the players with the ball in front to make the difference one against one,” Guardiola said afterwards.
“The big difference between the first and the second half is obvious. The first half we had problems, the second half the players change their mentality, to rebuild the situation.
“Unfortunately we didn’t win. We concede a goal when the opponent did not make anything. The second half we tried again.
“It was a chance and nothing else and we didn’t create too much but we were there like a team and okay, now we are going to …
