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 in the end he still appeared in the main squad. And Walker became the symbol of Manchester City’s (Man.City) failure.
Man.City (right) lost to Bournemouth, their opponent understood them too well.
Normally Walker dominates the right flank. Now he struggled throughout the game, often outplayed by Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo and Milos Kerkez. Football is a competitive sport where your performance is determined in part 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 flank (the flank Walker occupies 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, it seems like Pep doesn't want to... blame. But it's also possible that he intentionally hides Man.City's biggest concern at this time. People have talked a lot about Man.City's injury situation 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 and penetrated 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 near the end of the match that defender Josko Gvardiol equalized for Man.City, making the match exciting until the last minute.
Is it possible that Bournemouth have clearly seen the champion's big weakness (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 one-on-one battles, the victory often belonged to Bournemouth players. Semenyo dominated 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 in important situations". Of course, there were still 11 famous names in Man.City's main squad. But that was not a harmonious squad, and many individuals in it were not in the best physical condition.
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/manchester-city-thua-toan-dien-185241103184454371.htm
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