Performance had its junior moments, but it’s not quite right to call City a young side
TALKING POINTS FROM FULHAM DEFEAT
AT what age is a footballer no longer considered a young player?
They don’t wake up one day having graduated from starlet to star, it’s a process. Slowly, the fearlessness and vibrancy of youth gives way to the consistency and cunning of experience.
But, if you were to put a figure on it, you would say somewhere around 23 or 24.
For a few years now, since the start of Claude Puel’s tenure and the transition from title-winners to fresh talent began, City have been considered as a young team.
It’s been used on occasion to excuse their lapses in concentration or surprise defeats.
Brendan Rodgers said it again on Monday night: “It’s a young team and at times they play young.”
In some ways, Rodgers is right. City are still the only side in the Premier League to have started two teenagers in the same game, in Wesley Fofana and Luke Thomas, and did so again on Monday. Add in James Justin and they had the three youngest players on the pitch.
But add up the number of players aged 23 and under in each starting line-up, and City, with four, only had one more than Fulham. That extra one was Youri Tielemans, who has been playing top-level football since he was 16 and has racked up more than 350 appearances for club and country.
Then, take the average ages of the 11, and City are comfortably ahead, on 27 years of age, compared to 25. Because they have plenty of players, with the likes of Jonny Evans, Christian Fuchs, Jamie Vardy, and Kasper Schmeichel, who can steer the
Take the average ages of the 11, and City are comfortably ahead, on 27 years of age, compared to Fulham’s 25
younger players through these games.
So how long can City use their age as an excuse? It’s no longer truly accurate to describe this team as a young side.
Moving on from that description may be necessary to trigger a change in mentality.
They have a perfect mix of players – young, old and in between – and acting and thinking like a team in their prime may help reduce naivety on the pitch.
DESPITE the influx of different footballing cultures influencing formations in the Premier League, as a nation, England is still rooted in four-at-the-back.
Play with more than a quartet of defenders and it’s seen as a negative.
That was the case for City and Rodgers on Monday.
The current formation is best described as 3-4-2-1, but with traditional full-backs James Justin and Luke Thomas as wing-backs, it can be seen as a five-man defence.
At home to a porous side, this is asking for social media fury when the result isn’t right.
But it’s not a defensive set-up. You only have to look at Justin and Thomas’s positions to see that, with the duo quite regularly stationed higher up the pitch than James Maddison and Dennis Praet. Replace them with Ricardo Pereira and Timothy Castagne, two players lauded for their attacking abilities, and it certainly does not seem negative.
But while it may not be a defensive set-up, it may not be the right one for these games.
While the system has helped City secure fine victories at Manchester City and Leeds, it’s also been utilised for home defeats to West Ham and Aston Villa. When teams have sat deep, this system has not proven sharp enough to penetrate.
Only West Brom have mustered fewer good chances against this Fulham defence, which was the worst in the league before the weekend, and so maybe that will prompt a change in formation in these sorts of games from now on.
The opposition take particular notice of James Maddison, pictured, when preparing for games
THE bluntness of this shape is exacerbated when the opposition have something to defend, and that’s proving too common an occurrence.
City have now conceded first in six of their 10 Premier League matches, and when that happens, the opposition close ranks, no longer needing to open up and break out.
Take the scorelines at half-time and City would be 12th in the table. Consider only the second periods and they are second.
City are one of only three teams who have a 100 per cent record when they net the opening goal. They are a terrific team when they’re in front, but only a pretty good one when level or behind.
Injecting a bit of urgency into the first 20 minutes, even if it risks tiredness later in the game, may help City get the lead that they’re very good at holding on to.
JAMES Maddison’s reputation precedes him. It happens to most England internationals, but particularly those as talented and tricky as City’s number 10.
But what this means is that the opposition take particular notice of Maddison when preparing for games.
At the King Power Stadium, AndreFrank Anguissa stood on Maddison. If Tielemans slipped in a ball to the England international, Anguissa was on him in a flash, but usually he was so tightly marked that Tielemans looked elsewhere to offload.
City need their most creative player to be influential, but ensuring they are not hounded out of the game is difficult.
The first possible solution is to play more attacking players and give the opposition defence something more to think about, so that solely concentrating on one man does not seem so effective.