Leeds United forward Lukas Nmecha has revealed his shock at Manchester City’s tactics during the Premier League meeting between the two teams on Saturday.
City eventually prevailed 3-2 in a chaotic game at the Etihad Stadium. Leeds battled back from two goals down to pull level in the second half, although Phil Foden struck in the dying moments to win it for the home side.
A moment in the second half sparked confusion, however. When Gianluigi Donnarumma went down injured, City manager Pep Guardiola gathered his players together for what appeared to be an on-pitch team talk.
Speaking after the game, Nmecha said it was the first time he’d seen anything like it.
“I’ve never experienced a half-time in the second half where they’ve managed to have a meeting on the side — I’ve never seen that before,” he told Leeds’ [in-house media](https://video.leedsunited.com/video/dm9kJTdDMF9sZGw4cHQ0byU3QyUyRnBhZ2UlM0ZzbHVnJTNEaG9tZSU3Q2hvbWUlMkZsaXN0JTJGMCUyRmZlZWQ%3D). “I don’t know how they got away with that. An extra 10 minutes as well.”
Leeds boss Daniel Farke questioned after the game whether Donnarumma’s complaints were genuine.
“Everyone knows why he went down, right?” [he said](https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/leeds-united/daniel-farke-proud-leeds-united-32970559). “So it’s not like the elephant in the room. You can ask me what I think about it, but why he went down? I think it was obvious.”
The result was disappointing for Leeds, although there was comfort to take from the manner in which they fought back.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored the team’s first goal before Nmecha converted after his penalty was initially saved.
“It’s really tough to take, but we’ve just got to take the positives and learn from the negatives,” Nmecha said. “I think in the second half we were really good. We caused them massive problems.
“I think the manager read the game well. We changed formation and went two up top, and that really gave us the freedom, if we were in trouble, to go a bit longer. And that, after a while, created some spaces in between the lines, which was really important.
“When you concede like that, there are always little things, and we’re getting to that stage where we have to move away from talking about being unlucky and look more at those little, little details to end up getting more points.”