Manchester City 2-0 Cardiff: City Swat Aside Toothless Bluebirds

Manchester City lined up in their usual 4-3-3 shape, with Phil Foden making his debut in one of the central midfield roles alongside Kevin De Bruyne. Ahead of a fixture pileup, there was some other rotation from Pep Guardiola as Danilo and Gabriel Jesus started in place of Kyle Walker and Sergio Aguero. Neil Warnock chose to pack the Cardiff midfield with a deep 4-5-1, leaving Kenneth Zohore on the bench in favour of Oumar Niasse.

In truth this wasn’t the most interesting tactical contest, City scythed open Cardiff at will, and didn’t look like they had to get out of second gear to do so. If as lethal a finisher as Sergio Aguero had been on the pitch it could have been 6-0 quite comfortably - City missed some fairly easy opportunities. Cardiff looked resigned to defeat early on, without a cogent gameplan and massively lacking in confidence after their undeserved defeat to Chelsea at the weekend.

City opened scoring in 5th minute, Laporte picked out De Bruyne in the box, who was at a very tight angle and somehow snuck it past Neil Etheridge in the Cardiff goal. Etheridge is a capable goalkeeper and could have stopped the shot, but was too worried about De Bruyne squaring the ball for a tap in, and the Belgian spotted this and took full advantage with a clever finish.

City had been all over Cardiff in the opening minutes, with the Bluebirds not looking to have any idea of how they were supposed to be approaching the game. On the face of it this is a supremely tough match, but no one should be resigned to defeat from the start - there are ways of beating this City side. Some teams sit deep and try to frustrate like Newcastle successfully did in January, some counter attack like Crystal Palace in December, and those who are brave enough press high up to try to steal the ball up the pitch like Liverpool have tended to do in previous meetings. Cardiff didn’t really do any of these and so it’s puzzling as to what their plan was to try to take something from this match. City’s last two defeats have been to other relegation candidates, so it’s not as though they are unbeatable.

Foden making his first start was a big pre-match talking point, and he had a decent game - he was pretty unlucky to not get a goal on his full debut thanks to some good Etheridge saves but it wasn’t a headline-grabbing performance either. It’s hard to say whether this start represented a show of faith from Guardiola, or if he was just supremely confident of beating Cardiff and didn’t feel he needed a full strength side, especially as the fixtures build up for City at the business end of the season. If so, he had a point, City were not troubled in this match, but were guilty of taking it easy a bit too early in the game. At 1-0, they were taking shots from distance and not playing with enough urgency when another goal was needed to kill the game off.

One interesting tactical point was City’s winger-full back combinations, as the two starting pairs represent very opposite styles. Danilo and Riyad Mahrez both like to cut inside, with the former joining as an auxiliary central midfielder at times and the latter just wanting to cut in onto his favoured left foot to take shooting opportunities. Sane and Oleksandr Zinchenko both play extremely wide and high up the pitch, stretching the play. Zinchenko is a converted winger, so his attacking instincts are understandable, while Sane is atypical as modern wingers are concerned, playing on his strong side rather than cutting in like Mahrez and most others. This meant the full backs were doing the same things as their wingers, rather than offering a different option. City’s hand was forced when Zinchenko was taken off with an injury in the first 20 minutes, meaning Kyle Walker came on at right back and Danilo switched to the left, but this actually gave City more balance; Walker overlapped Mahrez, while Danilo came inside and left the left flank free for Sane.

Man City got their inevitable second goal just before half time, a corner fell to Jesus who laid it off to Sane to hit a lovely driven effort into the bottom corner. Although Cardiff had posed zero threat, the goal was necessary to ensure the second half was comfortable and could be played at a slower pace for the home side to conserve energy.

If this is a very Man City focused analysis, it’s because Man City did the vast majority of the interesting things in this match. Cardiff had a couple of corners, neither of which came to anything, their first shot came in the 73rd minute and they only gave the home side a slight scare in the final 10 minutes when Niasse had a chance on a counter attack to halve the defecit. Niasse is a willing runner and will work hard for his team, but he is not prolific enough to feed off scraps or gifted enough to hold the ball up until teammates can support him. Cardiff also only managed 21% possession and 3 shots to Man City’s 27. They played like a side who were already relegated, when in previous games they have clearly shown the necessary fight and desire to cause upsets.

Cardiff’s substitutions were fairly inconsequential, like-for-like changes, with Neil Warnock obviously deciding it was not worth throwing an extra striker on to chase in vain for a couple of goals for fear of taking major damage to their goal difference. Their first change was Mendez-Laing for Murphy. Bacuna and Reid later replaced Gunnarsson and Camarasa.

The second half was a languid affair, with the result already decided. It’s staggering City didn’t get at least one more goal, given their number of efforts on goal and the dominance they had over their opponents. They probably should have had a penalty in the 74th minute when Mahrez was clipped in the area, and on 78 minutes Jesus tried to flick a De Bruyne pass into the goal rather than applying a simple finish. He was offside, but this wasn’t flagged - it’s impressive that he was confident enough to try this trick after already having wasted some similarly easy chances earlier in the game. Unfortunately we didn’t learn much about City in this game, it was as routine as routine wins come.

This was an ideal match for Foden to make his debut in. He had the experience of Fernandinho behind him, and was playing with probably the best central midfielder in the world in Kevin De Bruyne. In addition, this was a home match to a pretty poor team, and he has already made several substitute appearances and starts in the cup competitions, so was familiar enough with the team to be used to his teammates movement. However… he played okay, but not spectacularly. David Silva, Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan were all fit and on the bench, and it’s hard not to see City signing a top central midfielder to replace Fernandinho in the summer like they intended to with Fred or Jorginho in previous windows. At minimum, Foden desperately needs a loan move, but should really consider following Jadon Sancho’s example and moving permanently elsewhere. He might one day be good enough to get in this team every week, but he will not get the chances to grow to that level in the next few years if he is barely making the bench each week.

Cardiff look destined for relegation on the basis of this display. Clearly, this is probably the most difficult game they will play all season, away to the reigning champions, but they were completely listless and looked devoid of confidence. They had no plan, and face Man Utd and Liverpool before the end of the season. It’s honestly surprising that they didnt just play their reserves in this match so that the best XI were fitter for the winnable matches they have remaining. A better performance against Burnley in their next match is an absolute must.