City Watch: Blues suffer back-to-back defeats

Following the conclusion of the international break, Manchester City faced Newcastle United at St James’ Park on Saturday in their return to Premier League action. 

Eddie Howe’s side have been struggling to pick up points this season, mostly away from home, but having been to Tyneside multiple times, the threat of playing the Magpies on their own turf can never be underestimated.

The last few games in the North East have been absolute crackers, with Kevin De Bruyne inspiring a 3-2 win on his return from injury a few seasons ago, and then clawing back from 3-1 down to draw 3-3 in the treble season, so there was all the ingredients for this to be an incredible game.

The match lived up to it’s expectation, with end-to-end football played across the entire 90 minutes. Both teams had multiple chances in the first half, and it probably could’ve been 3-3 at half time, but neither side were able to be clinical, leaving the second half on a knife edge.

It took until the 63rd minute for the deadlock to be broken, with Harvey Barnes scoring and finally beating Donnarumma, who had already made some world class saves to deny the Magpies. 

The flood gates, predictably, then opened, with Ruben Dias equalising from a scrappy corner just a few minutes later to level the game.

Barnes then re-established Newcastle’s lead, again just a few minutes after Dias’ goal, with City unable to respond, leaving the score at 2-1 and a poor restart following the break.

As a whole, I don’t think the performance was the worst we’ve seen, despite the scoreline, the only criticism I have is that we weren’t clinical enough in front of goal. 

We had enough chances in the first half to have the game wrapped up before the second period.

I will admit as well, the players looked tired, and honestly, after most of them had a lot of minutes in the international break across different countries, I’m not surprised. 

It constantly frustrates me that players are expected to play so many games in a season, it’s reaching a point where the game is played at such a high level and fast paced that their bodies can’t keep up.

The Newcastle game may not have been a bad result, however, City returned to Champions League action on Tuesday night, and honestly, that was one of the worst performances I’ve seen in a while, including last season where it felt the same every week.

Pep obviously felt that his regular starters were playing too many games for their club and country, because he made 10 changes against Bayer Leverkusen, only Nico Gonzalez keeping his place. 

The German side’s plan was clear from the start, sit back and hit City on the break, and they played their tactics to perfection. 

Once again, the Blues were just nowhere near clinical enough in front of goal for the chances they did create, and the rest of the time, they were too busy playing loose passes with no real direction.

The 2-0 defeat on Tuesday left us sixth in the Champions League table, and by the time this column is out, we may have even dropped out of the top eight. 

I’m fully aware that I’m about to contradict my point earlier about players playing too many games, because I do respect Pep for protecting his team, however, he’s been bitten by making too many changes in the past, and I’d honestly thought he’d learnt from it. 

The players looked disjointed because they were, and that’s what happens when you make too many changes.

Still, at least our next Champions League game is more simple, a trip to the Spanish capital to play Real Madrid…