Manchester City were handed their first defeat of the season on Wednesday night at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur.
Following on from their 1-0 win over Southampton in the Premier League last weekend, City took on Ange Postecoglou’s side at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the last 16 of the Carabao Cup.
Finding themselves 2-0 down after 25 minutes, a goal from Matheus Nunes just before halftime wasn’t enough to see the Blues secure another comeback victory and progress to the quarter-finals.
Throughout the 90 minutes in the capital, multiple talking points emerged that came from the positive and the negative side of the fence.
Let’s take a look at some of those topics.
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Matheus Nunes’ growing confidence
With Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku just two of the players City have out injured at the moment. Nunes continued occupying the left-wing role, as he has done in the Manchester club’s three previous matches.
Across those games, the 26-year-old has delivered three assists and scored two goals, the latest of which coming in Wednesday’s defeat to Spurs.
Having delivered another goal contribution, this highlights how Nunes’ confidence will be growing, not just in this left-wing position but as a part of the team in general, making him Pep Guardiola’s shining light in a dark period.
Phil Foden fails to make an impact
In the absence of Erling Haaland, Phil Foden was picked to start in a false-nine role. This saw the 24-year-old have very little impact on the game as he failed to register a shot on target or a key pass.
With just 25 touches of the ball in 58 minutes, the Englishman was hooked for Bernardo Silva to bring an end to what was a very uninspiring night for last season’s Premier League Player of the Year.
Another poor night for Ilkay Gundogan
Similarly to Foden, Ilkay Gundogan had a night to forget against Spurs. However, Guardiola didn’t even allow the German to come out for the second half as he opted to put Mateo Kovacic on instead.
With City having so many players out injured at the moment, Guardiola will need the likes of Gundogan and Foden to start having significant impacts on the pitch to drag the team forward.
Conceding too many chances
Even though they’ve lost Rodri to a season-ending injury, this shouldn’t excuse City for the number of chances they conceded against Spurs and how vulnerable they are to counter-attacks.
Specifically, Spurs had 11 shots at goal in total, forcing Stefan Ortega into making five saves across the 90 minutes.
Players such as Timo Werner and Dejan Kulusevski found themselves in numerous counter-attacking opportunities City may count themselves lucky that they only conceded two on the night.
Injury crisis worsens
In addition to having Manuel Akanji pick up a knock in the warm-up on Wednesday night, Savinho was stretchered off in the second half, making City’s already worrying injury situation even worse.
