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Football against Manchester City is not fun. We’ve known this for some time - Fulham are currently on the wrong side of the longest winning run against a single opponent in English football history - but tonight, coming off painful late defeats against Manchester United and Everton, Pep Guardiola’s team unleashed a new world of pain that tore us to pieces in a single half. Goals from Semenyo, O’Reilly and Haaland signalled an early death for our hopes this evening, and if current form is to be taken seriously Fulham’s season is starting to falter.
City’s late victory against Liverpool has been described by many as the kickstart to their title campaign, potentially the start of the endgame for their aspirations of becoming Premier League champions again. The early evidence certainly suggested this, with Fulham cast as the hapless onlookers. Guardiola teams like to dominate the ball and this was as typical as it gets, a team of attackers moving possession around our half, spreading themselves across the pitch to force our forwards to help out defensively, waiting for our concentration to buckle before playing the ball into danger. It’s the calibre of football that has won the man titles everywhere - but it’s deeply painful when it’s your own team at the other end of the sword.
We’ve faced this at the Etihad before - we’ve even given City a few scares in recent years. But today, the team were subdued, trailing City forlornly around the park, and it meant the few times we claimed the ball were quickly shot down by needless miscues and errors. Gold dust for our opponents today. A miscue from Iwobi on the left was pumped back into the exposed flank, letting Foden move the ball to Haaland - his shot deflected off Bassey for a series of corners, each intricate and accurate, the first two producing an O’Reilly shot blocked by Bassey at close range and a Foden volley from outside the box narrowly deflected over by Andersen.
Our defence, unable to withstand the pressure, were losing their heads. Bassey kept drifting out of position, noticed and pounced upon immediately by City on the right - Silva fed it to Nunes, who had the space away from Sessegnon to fire a cross into the box. Foden collected the deflection it took, taking a clever touch to defy the left-back’s desperate slide, but the England man put his effort straight into Leno’s grasp. It was a mess, and only City’s wastefulness seemed able to keep them from opening the scoring. Dias and Guehi sat back as City danced through the evening, pinging the ball fluidly around our disheartened troops. O’Reilly eluded Berge easily, gliding into pockets of space but firing his shots off target.
Unfortunately, our first chance of the game gave City the slap in the face needed to find their killer instinct. Raul, finally in possession in City’s half, moved the ball left to Chukwueze. With pace, the winger moved parallel to the box and found a central Wilson, who laid the ball off to Iwobi. He drove through the box, cutting through City’s stunned midfield, and struck at goal - Ruben Dias, alert to the danger, tracked his run and slid to block the low effort. But moving forward for the corner dislodged what little focus we’d established. For at the next attack, after Rodri’s ball over the defence was put into the box from the right by Nunes, a terrible defensive header from Berge smacked the ball straight back across the goal, proving the perfect assist for Semenyo. He stuck a foot out to put it past Leno, opening the scoring for the hosts.
It was a terrible moment, a reminder of the dangers of attacking against a Guardiola team, but it was about to get much worse. Seemingly frenzied by combination of actually having an attack and then conceding a cheap goal, Fulham surged again - Iwobi craftily moved it to Jimenez, Raul again had the eye to spot Smith Rowe amongst a scattered City defence, he in turn took a single touch to bend the pass through Guehi and Ait-Nouri to Wilson, who daggered into the box with a cut-inside and, after deflecting the ball off Guehi, fired an effort at Donnarumma. With a touch more bend it would have scored - instead, the Italian’s firm body took the momentum away, and denied us the scoring chance. City needed only a few seconds to turn the game on its head - Nunes, from deep, picked out Haaland in space. Andersen stampeded out of defence to intervene, felling him with a slide tackle, but it was too late - the star-striker knocked it onto O’Reilly, who in turn fed Semenyo darting down the left wing. Flying into the final third, with our defence severely understaffed, he waited for the right moment to play the ball past Tete to O’Reilly’s overlap. They’d reached the six-yard box, and after earlier mishaps the young midfielder found the right touch, brilliantly lifting the ball over Leno to plant his strike into the far-right of the goal. 2-0, and Fulham were in serious trouble.
The game was now a mess - Fulham were disjointed and deflated, watching City cruise around in search of a third. They barely even had to defend - Rodri was in the heart of the action, collecting yet another misplaced pass, this time from Leno, and via a deflection fed Foden from the right to produce another shot. A corner saw Tete survive a VAR decision, appearing to yank Semenyo’s hair and escaping sanction. Then, the inevitable: Iwobi lost the ball in midfield to Ait-Nouri, who slipped it through to Foden, letting the Englishman take a few strides and knock the ball along to an open Haaland. As ever, Haaland was unstoppable - he changed trajectory, giving himself a split-second with our backline moving the wrong way, and fired the ball through Bassey’s legs to guide it besides the post.
It wasn’t the end of the half, let alone the game, but at 3-0 it felt terminal. We had a few chances, too - a poor Guehi defensive header gave Wilson an opportunity to charge down the wing, slipping a through ball for Jimenez sneaking behind Ait-Nouri. With no one between him and Donnarumma the world was at his feet; he dinked the ball over the keeper, but sideways across to Smith Rowe, storming into the box. If only Emile were a few inches taller - he couldn’t stretch far enough, and the cross trickled in front of goal and out of play. If we’d been a little sharper, we might have stolen a goal back here - City were coasting with their three-goal lead, and decent work by Iwobi let Fulham architect a couple of chances before the break. Yet Wilson’s cross to Jimenez produced a header that bounced into the ground for Donnarumma to catch, and as Chukwueze lifted a shot over the bar shortly afterwards, the scoreline still read a somber story.
Would the second half produce a recovery reminiscent of the nearly-moment at the Cottage? 3-0 was a smaller margin than the 5-1 drubbing we were enduring that night, and a few similarities could be felt. City had been very impressive but the vulnerabilities were present - they’d toyed with us towards the end of the half, Foden and Haaland snatching at chances they might have scored with a little more focus, and our pathway to the goal was open a few of the times we strung the passes together and had an attacker facing the goal in their half. Could we produce a miracle?
The early signs were good. After riding an early Ait-Nouri cross, an offensive along our right saw Wilson take initiative, trying to use the space around the City backline. A pass deflected off Marmoush reached Smith Rowe, also aware of the gaps our opponent was leaving. He latched onto the ball, burrowing into the box and sliced a shot a goal - Donnarumma, once again, read the situation and dove low to push the shot away. A Chukwueze miscue and a tame Bassey effort were all the corner yielded.
It’s frustrating to think we might have given City some problems if we’d played as we did here a little earlier. Fulham put the tempo up a little, stepping into City’s half and finally forcing the attackers in blue to rejoin their defensive teammates. This gave us the time to work our offensives, piecing together a few moves: Chukwueze put a ball into the box that Jimenez headed over, and Smith Rowe stealing the ball from a poor Guehi touch required Ait-Nouri to deprive Wilson of a goal-scoring chance right in front of the box. City still had moments - Foden taking a Marmoush cut-back and drilling it low for Leno to save being the clearest - but we were competing in the game, a far cry from the state of affairs in the first half.
We were still three goals down though, and changes had to be made. Our frontline was completely changed as Kevin, King and Muniz arrived to liven up the energy we could spend trying to breach City’s defensive quarters. Unfortunately, our hosts today have one of the best squads in the world - a team full of quality internationals, waiting to play the Guardiola way. Marmoush had already swapped for Haaland at half-time, and Reijnders and Khusanov entered to soak up some of the pressure we were trying to impart. It flicked a switch, and City were back to dominating the ball, glowing as they strung together 20, 30, 40 pass moves. They even got their share of refereeing luck, Foden fortunate to escape with a yellow for carelessly standing on Bassey’s heel during play.
It had the desired effect for them, taking our threat out of the game and eating away the clock. Unsurprising, given how many matchdays City have left to play, but something that left us in a familiar position, able to “enjoy” possession but unable to regularly penetrate the box. A good move from Wilson and Tete let King nip rightwards to force a corner, but to no avail. Kevin, doing well to dazzle Khusanov and Reijnders on the left, sent a ball into the box for Muniz, who did well to put an effort on target given the acute angle but once again Donnarumma’s massive figure blocked the attempt.
The resilience of their keeper transmitted to their defence - Guehi, who’d wobbled earlier in the game, was resolute, repelling a series of crosses from both flanks, wrestling Muniz away from danger and blocking King from striking at goal after he snatched a good ball from Kevin. Punctuated by substitutes and breaks in play, the energy of the game fell away, and our chances were errant opportunities than anything sustained. Kevin received a pass from Muniz that he turned into a Row-Z effort, and though he tried valiantly to atone for it, eluding substitute Khusanov at left-back by supplying King with a shot on the turn, yet another save from Donnarumma pushed the youngster’s shot over the bar. The corner, producing a scuffed shot from Bobb and a goalmouth scramble that City cleared, proved the end of proceedings.
At least it wasn’t five? I think we forget sometimes that there’s a reason Manchester City enjoy so many games of football, not just against us but in the entirety of Guardiola’s stay in England. The thriller last year disguises the fact that they blew us to pieces at many a moment in that game, as they have done to dozens of sides across the country for many years. This is considered one of the weaker teams Pep has built, but they are a few points off 1st place and lead the league in goals, all whilst being contenders in every trophy available to them - it is only the incredible bar for success that City have set that make this season feel a poor one for them.
You can see that in the football City play. We were spectators for most of the first half, stuck watching a carousel of passes fizz around us. You forget how much energy a team spends trying to soak up the pressure - on many an occasion we lacked the impetus to get up the pitch, precisely because the effort had been put into tracking the dozen runs and mini-moves City turn even the most mundane of moments into. Worse, when we tried to pass our way out of trouble, the fearsome sight of a Haaland, Semenyo or Rodri came bearing down on us, letting them force us into a cheap mistake. We trailed 3-0, it frankly could have been six or seven, and only a snippet of the artwork they made in the first half would have been enough to beat us today.
Consider also the importance of the clean sheet - it’s easy to praise Haaland’s goals, O’Reilly and Semenyo flying into space, or Foden, Bernardo and Rodri weaving silk, because that’s what typefies City at any moment. Far harder to spot is the defensive acumen the team are growing. Mistakes in the first half were rectified by the second, as Guehi and Dias fortified the box, Ait-Nouri stepped up to take Wilson out of the game and Khusanov put his all into fighting Kevin even into the dying moments. Donnarumma, an elite shot-stopper, pulled out his best to cancel the efforts that snuck through. It’s clear that City will have something to say in the title race yet.
Of course, there’s another narrative to spin from this game. Fulham have been defensively suspect for a few weeks now and against a team like this any cracks were bound to be blown open. Bassey returned to the team today and immediately started charging around trying to win the ball, without thought for the fact City could see him doing this and target the space he’d left behind. Andersen was sluggish again, utterly redundant in far too many defensive moments across the game and is enduring a really poor run of form. Our fullbacks were constantly exposed to overlaps and throughballs as a result. They aren’t being helped much by the pair in front of them - Iwobi and Berge desperately need players to rotate out for them at this point, because their energy wasn’t able to disrupt City’s passing machine whatsoever. Both players’ weaknesses were on full force today - Iwobi, slick as he was on the ball, spent far too much of the game being breezed past by attackers to attack the backline, whilst Berge shrunk back into his shell on the ball and couldn’t diminish any of the pressure the team was facing.
It all produced an environment ripe for game-changing mistakes. Berge’s header straight to Semenyo was horrible, Andersen bulldozing Haaland and not even winning the ball gifted City an straight-forward training-ground-esque goal routine, and Fulham failing to keep their cool let City capitalise on a misplaced pass and add a third for very little. You can’t defend like that in the Premier League, certainly not if you want to try and advance up the table, and for as good as City are we’ve shown what we’re capable of in many a match against the stronger sides - why couldn’t we do it today?
I think this is what really grates - everyone expects Fulham to come away from this game without a point, but there were so many moments that showcased what could have been. With a little more aptitude we’d have taken the ball off City and countered more frequently - when they clicked, the front four demonstrated they could move the ball through City’s understaffed defence and get into the opposition box. Donnarumma, though he didn’t see the action often, had a few saves to make - imagine the difference in pressure if we’d kept our heads in the first half, and the hosts were clinging to a slender lead for that goalmouth scramble at the end?
If there’s a positive to take out of the game, it’s that there are attacking options for us around the pitch. King looked ready to get back into the action, giving Guehi work to do late into the game, Kevin had a more productive spell than Chukwueze was able to manage in his time on the pitch and Muniz showcased the kind of physicality the modern forward needs to be competing with players like Guehi and Dias. I liked Bobb’s cameo too - given Wilson has played many, many minutes for us he is certainly going to receive some minutes in the near future. Though it’s tricky to think of it now, there are still good footballers in this team; perhaps a tie against Stoke in the cup this weekend will remind us that City aren’t the typical opponent in the division, and let some of the squad find some much needed form heading into the latter half of the campaign.