We’re still really not sure what to make of this slightly rough-around-the-edges Manchester City.
They are, to borrow Gary Neville’s word during this initially serene yet ultimately rather fraught win at Brentford, ‘scruffier’ than previous iterations of Pep Guardiola teams both here and elsewhere.
What they are doing, though, is playing more directly to Erling Haaland’s considerable strengths. Sure, he’s scored a lot of goals for City playing the old ‘dominate all the games and create millions of chances’ way, but you do get the distinct impression he relishes the greater willingness of 25/26 City to just whip the ball forward to him far earlier, sometimes bypassing the midfield altogether.
The goal he scored at Arsenal was a very Dortmund Haaland goal, and what would prove, unlike that one in the end, the winner here was even more so.
Josko Gvardiol’s clipped forward ball was in no way an aimless hoof and hope, but nor was it some impossibly precise defence-splitter that left the outcome a formality. And yet, a formality is what it felt like as Haaland simply bulldozed the Brentford defence out of the way before slamming the ball past a slightly ill-positioned Caoimhin Kelleher.
It’s his ninth goal of the Premier League season already, and means Spurs remain the only club to shut him out this season. By scoring at the Gtech he has also filled one of the few remaining blanks on his Premier League record; Anfield is now the only ground on which he’s played Barclaysball without a goal.
Yet that early goal would set up a first half that felt very Old City. They dominated Brentford to a degree we’ve rarely seen anyone dominate anyone in the Premier League this season. It was all very ‘training exercise’ as Brentford strived desperately just to stay in the game.
Despite the nature of their goal, City spent the rest of the half attacking in more recognisably City fashion. They boasted a 95 per cent pass completion rate and set up camp deep inside Brentford’s half. Yet they never looked more likely to score that way than they had when simply getting Haaland to run through and beyond Brentford’s defence while scattering them like tenpins.
The fear of allowing that to happen again was perhaps an explanation. For the rest of the half, Brentford deployed all three of their centre-backs on Haaland duty with their wing-backs playing as full-backs in all but name. It made it impossible to get out and left Kevin Schade and Igor Thiago on a hiding to nothing.
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To Keith Andrews’ credit, he realised this damage-limitation approach wouldn’t get them anything from the game, and the second half was far more of a contest. By the end it even felt possible that City might rue their failure to turn territorial and possession dominance into equivalent scoreline comfort.
City’s scruffiness returned in the second half, with the loss of Rodri to a hamstring injury midway through the first half perhaps starting to have an impact.
It remains to be seen how serious an injury that proves to be, but he bore the look of a man who knew another long lay-off is upon him. He was, though, back on the City bench in the second half – albeit heavily strapped – which could be positive ahead of the international break.
An odd game of two halves still leaves us scratching our heads about this City side. They have been a curious beast this season, but the facts are that they now sit just three points off the summit and in the first half they looked every inch title contenders.
Yet the failure to kill the game and nervy moments that ensued in the second half indicate a team that remains a work-in-progress under a manager doing things slightly differently to the enormously successful way he’s done things to bring up the vast bulk of what is now 250 career wins in Our League.
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