Can I add something to this talk about City’s bad record at this stadium, at the risk of sounding like I’m making excuses? Apart from the first game here, when City missed a penalty and lost 1-0, they have generally come here when not at their best or in a bad run of form.
- In 2019-20, every four or five games they would create chances, miss them and concede on the break, which was no different here.
- In 2020-21 it was the same thing, because they didn’t click into form that season until December.
- In 2021-22 it was the first game of the season and most of City’s players had been with their national teams all summer and half of them weren’t ready to play (they lost the Community Shield to Leicester the weekend before).
- Last season is less cut and dried but it was a bit like 2019-20 in that they did not win three league games in a row until April, and the kind of performance they put in against Spurs was not really a shock.
None of those results, then, apart from the first one, came as too much of a surprise. Tonight’s would do, of course, given City are playing at close to their best.
TL;DR: City have generally been performing badly whenever they have lost here.
First appeared on www.nytimes.com