Manchester City lost completely

I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY I LOST!

A series of great players such as Jack Grealish, John Stones, Ruben Dias, Rodri… are absent. Kevin de Bruyne has only just recovered enough to… sit on the bench. Kyle Walker was predicted not to be able to play at this time but he still appeared in the starting lineup. And Walker became the typical image of Manchester City's (Man.City) failure.

Man.City (right) lost to Bournemouth, their opponent knew them too well.

Walker, normally the dominant right winger, struggled throughout the game, often outplayed by Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo and Milos Kerkez. Football is a competitive sport where your performance is either outstanding or lacklustre, partly determined by your opponents. Suddenly Semenyo and Kerkez were both creative and powerful in this match. Both Bournemouth goals, scored by Semenyo and Evanilson, came from the left (the wing Walker was in charge of for Man.City).

Speaking after the match, coach Pep Guardiola denied injuries as a reason for Man.City's defeat. He said: "Losing is losing. Sometimes we lose to a specific opponent at a specific time without understanding why we lost. That's football."

At first glance, it seems like Pep doesn't want to... blame. But it's also possible that he intentionally hides Man.City's biggest concern at the moment. People have talked a lot about Man.City's injury situation since before the round, seeing it as an opportunity for Bournemouth to cause a surprise, and also an opportunity for Liverpool to take the top spot. In fact, Bournemouth did win and the top spot after 10 rounds also went to Liverpool. By beating Brighton 2-1, Liverpool surpassed Man.City by 2 points (Arne Slot alone went down in history as the most successful coach in the first 10 matches leading Liverpool in the national championship).

Just a few days before, Man.City lost to Tottenham in the English League Cup. If Mr. Pep admits that Man.City is weakened due to a crisis in force, the next opponents will try to exploit this weakness to win. Like Bournemouth!

ATTACK BOLDLY AND DESERVE TO WIN

For Bournemouth, this is a historic victory. Finally, they have had their first victory against Man.City. Except for a few extremely strong opponents, the general situation of the remaining teams in the Premier League when facing Man.City is to often arrange their squad low, play mainly on the home field, and focus on defense. Bournemouth did not do that in this match. Bournemouth's number of accurate shots was one and a half times more than Man.City's. The number of times Bournemouth had the ball, penetrating 1/3 of the opponent's field was 48, which is considered equal to Man.City (51). Except for the last ten minutes when they needed to prioritize defense to protect the victory, Bournemouth showed a "fair" attacking attitude against the champion. And Bournemouth showed superiority in all important factors in a match: organization, physical strength, tightness in tactics and creativity in attack.

In short, Bournemouth's 2-1 victory was completely deserved and convincing. Semenyo opened the scoring in just the first ten minutes, Evanilson scored another goal in the middle of the second half. It was not until the end of the match that defender Josko Gvardiol equalized for Man.City, making the match exciting until the last minute.

Perhaps Bournemouth clearly saw the big weakness of the champion (losing many good players due to injury) so they confidently imposed a bold style of play, determined to win instead of trying to avoid losing? In the one-on-one disputes, the victory often belonged to the Bournemouth players. Semenyo overwhelmed Walker, Illia Zabarnyi and Marcos Senesi "pocketed" Erling Haaland, Lewis Cook "pressed" Phil Foden. Coach Guardiola also admitted after the loss: "We could not control important situations". Of course, there were still 11 famous names in the Man.City starting lineup. But that was not a harmonious lineup, and many individuals in it were not in the best physical condition.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/manchester-city-thua-toan-dien-185241103184454371.htm