City thinking quick to find new routines that break the deadlock

FOR all the free-flowing goals that City have scored this season, the key breakthrough in the last two games has come from a dead ball situation.

At Goodison, Ilkay Gundogan’s dummy fooled a number of Everton players into stepping back and that left room and time for Aymeric Laporte to meet David Silva’s free-kick and break the deadlock.

Marco Silva’s team have developed a reputation for being terrible at set-pieces, so it wasn’t a shock to see the Blues profit in this way but it was a deliberate ploy. Mikel Arteta has been hard at work with the squad over the last few weeks practising their craft.

City again trained their freekicks ahead of Chelsea and within four minutes they had a goal from it when Kevin De Bruyne found Bernardo Silva with some quick thinking and Raheem Sterling slammed home. De Bruyne nearly pulled off something similar at Newcastle when he found Sergio Aguero, only to be booked for taking the kick without the referee’s consent.

Maurizio Sarri had harsher words for his team’s effort but Bernardo characterised it as capitalising when they were ‘not very alive’.

“I think the rule is when the referee tells you you have to wait for the whistle, you have to wait for the whistle. If he doesn’t tell you anything, you can play quick. Kevin after the Newcastle game said that he didn’t see the referee said that.

“He might have said it but he didn’t see it and tonight we tried to take advantage of these situations when the opponent is not very alive.”

City have also tightened up at the back. Ten of the 20 goals they have conceded in the league from this season have been from dead ball situations easily the highest percentage of any team in the division - and Guardiola has spoken a few times about the advantage his small team concede.

However, Everton were barely given a sniff and while Chelsea offered a few more shots on goal Ederson never looked like conceding as two clean sheets have provided the platform for vital victories.