“We already knew what awaited us,” said Pep Guardiola. The Manchester City manager scratched his nose, shrugged his shoulders, and admitted that as much as his team was aware of the problem they would face, his players had been unable to solve it. This Saturday, the ten thousand fans at the Vitality Stadium in foggy Bournemouth witnessed a strange event. They saw City tied up. The team with the most offensive resources in Europe without answers. The current quadruple successive champion of the Premier unable to escape Andoni Iraola’s trap.
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Mark Travers, Illia Zabarnyi, Milos Kerkez, Marcos Senesi, Adam Smith, Antoine Semenyo, Lewis Cook, Justin Kluivert (Enes Ünal, min. 77), Ryan Christie (Tyler Adams, min. 66), Marcus Tavernier (Dean Huijsen, min. . 89) and Evanilson (Brooks, min. 77)
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Ederson Moraes, Manuel Akanji, Walker, Gvardiol, Aké (Rico Lewis, min. 73), Bernardo Silva, Foden, Matheus, Gündogan (Jeremy Doku, min. 85), Kovacic and Erling Braut Haaland
Goals 1-0 min. 8: Antoine Semenyo. 2-0 min. 63: Evanilson. 2-1 min. 81: Gvardiol.
Referee Michael Oliver
yellow cards Ryan Christie (min. 5), Walker (min. 71) and Tyler Adams (min. 91)
“We were not up to their intensity and pace,” Guardiola diagnosed. “Especially in his long balls to the center forwards, Semenyo and Evanilson. We didn’t win the duels and we had to defend further back. That created problems for us to get out playing and they ended up dominating the transitions.”
Two injuries irremediably curtailed City’s trip to the south of England. Without Ruben Dias, its most forceful centre-back, nor John Stones, its most strategic centre-back, the team struggling to adapt to the absence of Rodri for the entire season, accumulated absences that together multiplied its instability. Since Bournemouth avoided the pressure they were putting on them in their field by jumping over it with long balls to their forwards, the match was decided in hand-to-hand combat in City’s field. There the usual suspects lost the battle, Aké and Akanji, two centre-backs without much vocation who depend on others like Rodri or Walker, with more territorial sense, to infect them with ardor. Rodri was neither in body nor in soul. Walker was there, but only in body. The English full-back had one of those days of dispersion and Bournemouth’s dominance extended to all levels. At the end of the match the balance of shots on goal summed up the fray: six for Bournemouth against four for the visitors. A sign of City’s fragility at this beginning of the championship.
“This is to be enjoyed,” Iraola said. “Because until now every time I played against Guardiola, I lost.” The coach from Gipuzkoa will never forget that during the visit to the Etihad, a year ago, in his first confrontation against the Catalan, he changed his tactical scheme to try to counter City defensively and suffered a humiliation: 6-1. A blow that induced an exercise in self-criticism that is rarely seen at the highest level. “I was clearly wrong,” he said. “Because we went to match that line of five with which they attack and I put five defenders at the start, something we had never done before. It was the worst message I could send to my players. We should have done the same but simply delaying a midfielder a little, without conveying that message that we have to protect ourselves more.”
Bournemouth lost by the minimum (0-1) in the next Premier match with City, last February. Yesterday, through courage, he managed to tip the balance in his favor. Not only with long balls to Semenyo and Evanilson. The team pushed the man with impressive enthusiasm and perseverance. They took risks in their coverage zone and when they recovered the ball in the opposite field they used it with speed and precision thanks above all to Senesi, Cook, Christie, Tavernier and the brave Kerkez, the Hungarian left back, Walker’s headache.
City had just been eliminated from the League Cup against Tottenham during the week. Since September 2023, they have not had two defeats in a row. Some coincidences deserve mention: Rodri played in none of the four games. Kovacic played in all of them. The loss of the Madrid midfielder, recently awarded the Ballon d’Or, means taking away one of his team’s fundamental support points. Guardiola’s tactical expertise is not enough to transform a prosthetic leg into a natural leg.
“Alive”
City’s setback did not help Arsenal, who were defeated in Newcastle (1-0). Mikel Arteta’s team not only lost another opportunity to advance in the standings of a Premier League in which all the greats are faltering. Arteta’s determination to entrust the helm of the attack to Havertz, to the detriment of Gabriel Jesús, Sterling and Jorginho, who remained on the bench, has produced a chain reaction that threatens to strip the team of the subversive will that was its first quality. from 2022.
“We started alive,” Arteta said, “but Isak’s goal caused a change of energies.” The 1-0 score, in the 12th minute, transferred mental strength to the northern side and left Arsenal as helpless. Bad sign for a squad that in recent seasons has strived to establish itself as the first option to challenge City’s hegemony.
Liverpool’s victory over Brighton (2-1) returns the red team to the top of the table with 25 points ahead of City (23), Nottingham Forest (19), and Arsenal (18).
