Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva are dribbling around the final third, looking for the right pass rather than the first pass. Josko Gvardiol is high on the wing for long enough that you forget he’s a nominal full-back. Forwards are dipping into space and then dashing off.
Arsenal humble Man City as Haaland's words come back to haunt him
Read MoreThe rest of the time, Guardiola is as jittery and frantic as his team.
City’s manager is never still for long when his team have the ball in their own half. If we judge the strongest teams by their weakest suit, City have a passing problem. To anyone accustomed to watching Guardiola’s teams suffocate and strangle opponents for the last 15 years, it is unfathomable.
Players who were used to playing the right pass play the wrong one. Players who were used to controlling and turning in one movement now do both a little too slow and invite pressure that they cannot deal with. It is all so very strange.
But we can’t tell City players to do that and neither can Guardiola. His entire ethos, his tactical raison d’etre, is built around talented footballers inviting pressure from opponents before extricating themselves out of it. Without the pledge and the turn, there’s no prestige and no magic trick either.
Arsenal vs Man City player ratings as 3/10 Foden looks 'lost' in 5-1 defeat
Read MoreIf it seems to you that City are being punished for their mistakes, that’s because the players aren’t used to committing them and so are slow to react. None of this feels real to them either.
It’s probably right, eventually. Good players being good is less surprising than good players being shambolic. They will spend money to fix it and maybe they already have.
In the first of those they hit the bottom of the pool with a heavy thump.
They ran into an elite team and, right not, they are not one.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Man City are playing like Southampton – and there’s no greater insult than that )
Also on site :