BOURNEMOUTH -- It is a curious new trick that Manchester City have found for themselves this season. Where usually they would be displaying their most elegant flourishes from the top, on so many occasions this season they have donned their strait jacket, bound themselves in manacles and submerged themselves. Week in and week out they seem to be saying, don't you worry folks, ol'Pep Guardiola's wriggling out of this one too.
It is as if just beating the Premier League's low hanging fruits without the Ballon d'Or winner wasn't challenge enough for the perennial champions. Let's do it in less time with more impediments. All well and good, perhaps even impressive, until it falls apart.
It do so on Saturday when Bournemouth refused to play along as the hosts shocked the defending champions 2-1. Antoine Semenyo made the most of the opening Manchester City afforded him in the first 10 minutes. Then he did so for much of the next 80. And so the champions don't end 2024 with the coup de grâce, an unbeaten run through the calendar year. Instead they slip off top spot. If this run of of slow starts continues then Guardiola is going to have to conjure up something impressive.
Among the myriad qualities of this City team had been their ability to grasp control of a game from the off and set the tempo from there. In the four prior seasons to this, their Premier League record in the opening 10 minutes of matches read 33 goals scored, 11 conceded, two of them penalties. Woe betide any opposition supporters who made it late to the ground. The game might be over by the time they were in their seat.
This season that early dominance has evaporated. When Milos Kerkez blew past Phil Foden, cutting back for the byline for Antoine Semenyo to touch, pivot and strike before a defender could get close to him, it was the fourth time they have conceded before the clock ticked beyond the 10th minute. They have scored three. By almost every attacking statistic you care to mention, City have become far more vulnerable at the outset. In the entirety of the 2022-23 season they allowed four shots on target in those early exchanges. In 2021-22 that number was seven. Already this year it is at eight. The 2.76 non-penalty expected goals they've allowed this season betters any full Premier League season tally since at least 2020-21.
A fair chunk of that 2.67 came this afternoon, 1.07 of it to be precise. If you've been following the trend here you might already suppose that it is the most we have data for. No wonder. It hadn't just been Semenyo's goal. Within the first two minutes they'd swung twice at the City gut, Ederson, who had had to be sprightly to beat Evanilson to a through ball, just about getting his gloves across to deny the attempted haymakers of Semenyo and Justin Kluivert. It was only a matter of time before the irrepressible Semenyo made his mark on this game.
"They scored early and could have scored earlier," admitted Pep Guardiola. "We know these types of situations, these types of balls. It was one or two actions, good build up from them in the left side, but after it was mainly long balls and lost balls. It's difficult then, when you have to defend deeper."
Just like against Wolves, Fulham, Brentford, even Southampton to an extent, City had increased the difficulty level. If this was a sign of just how much they believed in their hustle/grind, they were foolish. In the 81 minutes before Josko Gvardiol rose to meet Ilkay Gundogan's cross, they created precious little while committing bodies forward en masse. Erling Haaland showed impressive strength to brush away Marcos Senesi and volley just wide of goal. Very little else of great quality came his way until the death. More than anyone, he seems to be missing Kevin De Bruyne setting up his clinic in the right corner, firing shots his way with almost unscrupulous frequency. Watching on from the touchline, the Belgian looked forlorn. He knew he could fix it.
To make the fairly meagre shots they registered for most of this game, City were having to commit bodies forward. Everywhere Bournemouth looked there were chasms to drive into. Elsewhere in the Premier League title race, Arsenal spent the early stages of this afternoon showing just how trying life is without Martin Odegaard. It is no easier for the champions to cope without Rodri. Bournemouth blitzed through the middle at will.
Meanwhile, on the City right, Kyle Walker was being welcomed back into action in the cruelest of fashions by Semenyo. With Kerkez his devastating scalpel, the Ghana international conducted a ruthless examination of the qualities of a full back who might soon need the sobriquet "ageing." It all seemed too much when Semenyo sent Walker crashing into his own defender. Still there was more damage to do.
Semenyo drew pressure and wriggled away with a brilliant first touch, Kerkez flew beyond him. The cross begged Evanilson to hurl a boot in its direction, the Brazilian just reached it and Ederson was stranded. "A long ball [to Semenyo]. We lost the duel, and after they ran," said Guardiola. "The second goal defined quite well what happened or the moments that we suffered." That suffering would have been more profound had a well-struck Marcus Tavernier drive not cannoned against the post.
City were altogether better in the last 10 than they had been the first, Gvardiol's goal a reminder to the champions that 2-0 is no lost cause for a team that has rescued something on each of the last five occasions they've found themselves in this hole. Haaland nearly did so, Mark Travers saving well before the rebound cannoned against the post. He had also denied Jeremy Doku while Phil Foden flashed wide too, danger in abundance but not quite the suffocating pressure that City required. On this occasion they had not given themselves enough time to wriggle out of their early game bind.
