The Expert: Why Man City shouldn't be troubled by winless run

After Saturday’s draw against Everton, Pep Guardiola admitted that there was a danger his players would lack confidence before Wednesday’s trip to Barcelona. It was an unusual admission, one that was greeted with a sense of surprise in the press-room – managers almost never acknowledge confidence might be struggling even on truly disastrous runs – which in itself is probably significant. Guardiola, you suspect, doesn’t think it’s that big a problem.

And nor should he after Saturday’s performance. Stripped of the context of the defeat to Tottenham and the away draw against Celtic in the Champions League, the draw against Everton would be regarded as a blip, a freakish game in which City played superbly and failed to win handsomely only because, well, because football sometimes does that to you.

Even Ronald Koeman, the Everton manager, was moved to say afterwards that his side hadn’t deserved the point, and, more than that, that Manchester City were the best team he had ever come up against in his managerial career. Perhaps he was helping out Guardiola, his old Barcelona roommate, somebody with whom he still regularly has dinner, but on the evidence of the game there was little reason to suppose he was not speaking sincerely.

Certainly there was no evidence in Everton’s play of them trying to take on City as Celtic and Spurs had. A glance at the heatmaps for the three games shows how deep they were forced, despite starting with three forwards to try to take advantage of City’s switch to a back three (which Koeman had predicted).

Romelu Lukaku scored with one of only two shots Everton had on target, one of only three they managed in total throughout the game. And if a player has to run 40 yards with the ball, beat a defender and then beat the goalkeeper, it can’t even really be argued that City had made it easy for him – even if there was a sense that once Gael Clichy had been isolated, Lukaku was always likely to go past him.

Was there perhaps a way of preventing Clichy being isolated like that? Well, maybe, but its an inherent risk in the way City play with their high line, their hard pressing and their use of two players at the back of midfield in Fernandinho and Ilkay Gundogan who are more prized for their creativity rather than their destructive qualities.

Nicolas Otamendi and Leroy Sane were City’s most prolific tacklers on Saturday with five and four respectively; Gundogan made three – which offers some indication that Everton’s threat tended to come down their left, which was of course where the goal came from. Over the season as a whole, Pablo Zabaleta and Nicola Otamendi have made the most tackles per game for City, followed by Clichy and Fernandinho. Gundogan, who has often played higher up the pitch, is joint eleventh in that ranking, behind Raheem Sterling.

City missed two penalties and Maarten Stekelenburg made two other stunning saves. In total they had 19 shots: eight of them were on target. By the time the equaliser came, it had felt like Everton were facing a relentless, unstoppable wave. The disappointment from a City point of view was that they didn’t then finish off the job. In fact they didn’t even have a shot after the 81st minute and, slightly oddly, ended up in injury time with Vincent Kompany playing at centre-forward (he was barely involved, touching the ball just twice in six minutes on the pitch).

Before the Barca game, though, it’s memories of the Celtic and Spurs matches that will trouble City. When they’ve been pressed this season, they have looked vulnerable and there’s no doubt that Barca will press them. They have the pace to take advantage of the space Barca will inevitably leave behind them, but that wasn’t much help at Tottenham. The Everton game shouldn’t trouble City unduly but the test they face at the Camp Nou will be very different.

Should City be concerned or encouraged by the performance against Everton? Let us know in the comments below