Do City struggle on smaller pitches?

On Wednesday the following tweet from Jonathon Wilson intrigued me:

Pochettino's point about pitch size is a good one - Manchester City's away record on small pitches is disproportionately bad.
— Jonathan Wilson (@jonawils) October 29, 2014

Is this true? I thought I'd have a look at the stats to see if this was the case.

To do this I looked at City's points per game at each away ground in the Premier League since the start of the 2010-11 season, and then combined those where the pitch is the same size. The most common pitch size in the Premier League is 105 by 68 metres (this is the standard size for international matches). This is the size at 9 current Premier League grounds, including the Etihad stadium (and Wembley). For pitches of this size, City got 1.97 points per away game over that period.

The only bigger pitch City played on in the Premier League during that period is at Ewood Park. That pitch is 105 by 69.5 metres and City won both matches played there. This is too small a sample size to draw many conclusions from.

All the other pitches in the Premier League are smaller but have various dimensions, for example Loftus Road is 102 by 66 metres, Stamford Bridge is 103 by 67 metres. In matches played on pitches smaller than the Etihad, City got 1.51 points per game.

This is a clear difference. City are getting nearly half a point less per game on smaller pitches. There is clearly an issue here, the smaller the pitch the worse City do.


Added comment:

There are two factors which go into the area of a pitch - width and length. So do City have an issue with narrow or short pitches? The answer surprised me in that it looks like its the pitch length which is important. If only pitches which are shorter than 103 metres are considered, City got 1.46 points per game. This reduces again to 1.44 points per game for pitches shorter than 102 metres

Was Negrado allowed to leave due to FFP?

The departure of Alvaro Negredo on the last day of the transfer window without a replacement arriving has surprised many people. That he was looking to leave seemed to be almost an open secret. Rumours have been circulating for a while that his wife wasn't happy in England and was suffering from homesickness. If true, then the best for all concerned is probably a transfer back to Spain. But why was this done so late and with no replacement arriving? This is unlike the carefully planned moves that have characterised City's transfer business in the last two summers. Is the clue to be found in the FFP punishment City received from UEFA a few months ago?

Two aspects of the FFP punishment have been discussed often over the summer - the squad size restrictions and limit on spending on transfers. A third part of the punishment has rarely been discussed. City's wage bill cannot increase. While I'm not certain of the exact details, such as what the monitoring period is, the club will be aware and will have a number they want the total wages to be below after all the transfer business has been done.

This need to restrict wages throws an interesting light on much of City's summer business. Firstly several high wage earners have left (e.g. Lescott and Barry), and secondly several players who would have been among the highest earners (such as Aguero, Silva and Kompany) have signed new long term deals. Normally this would also mean their wages would have increased but a line from City's statement in response to the FFP punishment suggests an alternative. This said:

It is important to note that additional bonuses for performances can be paid outside this number.

The number referred to is the wage bill. Bonuses do not count towards wages for FFP. So have City reduced their wage bill by renegotiating contracts with reduced basic pay but increased bonuses? I doubt UEFA would allow them to abuse this loophole by doing this significantly, but it does suggest City are making efforts to reduce wages.

If the whole of City's summer transfers and the new contracts is looked at from the point of view of the wage bill, it does look like efforts have been made to comply with the FFP wage restriction. Which brings us back to Negredo. What if, after all the summer activity, they looked at the wage bill and weren't certain of passing the FFP test? Perhaps there was an agreement that he would be allowed to leave if a replacement could be brought in, but they didn't find one. This would explain why nothing happened earlier. Then, at the end, there was a need to trim the wage bill a little bit more and Negredo wants to leave. Was he allowed to leave at the last minute due to FFP?

Community Shield - Couldn't be bothered or worryingly underprepared?

The first trophy of the season has gone to Arsenal in the 'traditional season opener' or a 'glorified friendly'. They deservedly beat City who may as well not have turned up in the first half. How worrying City's performance was depends partly on your view of the importance of the Community Shield. I'm of the opinion it's a bit of both the above descriptions. It's a traditional friendly to open the season, a bit more competitive than normal due to the spotlight on it, but ultimately not that meaningful.

In the stadium it was rapidly clear that Arsenal were taking the game more seriously than City. On the pitch City were still in full pre-season mode. Yaya Toure in particular was just wandering around as if it was a game in the park he'd stumbled on and wasn't sure how long he wanted to stay and play for. Other players weren't at full pace either, I can't remember Jesus Navas running at a defender once for example.

Off the pitch, the fans weren't that bothered either. Neither end of the stadium was full, although the gaps at the Arsenal end were much smaller, a few gaps of maybe 10 to 20 seats with a few other seats empty scattered around their end. Club Wembley was, as usual, maybe half-full. In the City end though, there were thousands of empty seats. The two pictures below show the difference between the two ends clearly.

There are reasons for some of this, the distance of City fans from Wembley, cost, the travel issues due to engineering work closing the west coast mainline so that no trains were running between Manchester and London. But the biggest reason is that City fans, like the players, just weren't as bothered with it as Arsenal fans.

If that is the only reason for the defeat, then there is little to be concerned about. There is also the fact that Arsenal were much closer to full strength than City, which could have played a role. But there is another, much more worrying possibility - City are under-prepared for the season ahead.

One of the negative side-effects of having a large squad full of internationals is that more of our players will be involved late in major tournaments. City had three players on the pitch in the World Cup Final last month. This means they end up returning very late in pre-season. This year it was a week ago. The consequence of this is that City has had a half-strength squad for most of pre-season. This is bound to have an impact on preparations. There is obviously a question mark over the match fitness for the late returning players (which is why none of them played at Wembley) but there will be impacts on the team. New signings will take longer to settle in, understanding within the team will take longer to achieve, and pre-season games will have featured players that will not play once the season starts (e.g. Jack Rodwell).

This is unavoidable as the players do need the break, but has it left City under-prepared for the season ahead? We have a fairly tough opening set of fixtures so do need to hit the ground running. If we aren't ready we could find ourselves falling behind early on. There is one mitigating factor this season - the games are fairly spread out at the start of the season. Partly that is because the season is two weeks longer this year, but it's mainly because there are a lot of international games being played (England play 4 before the middle of October), which should give us time to catch up a little if we are under-prepared.

Is a relatively quiet summer good or bad for City?

At the start of the summer most City fans would have felt that there wasn't much that needed to be done in the transfer window. A new centre back (especially as Joleon Lescott was out of contract and leaving), and some depth added in the centre of midfield were the priorities. Aside from that, there may be a need for new signings but only if they were a replacement and upgrade for someone leaving.

So far the summer has fitted the above. The biggest signing so far is Fernando. This adds strength in the centre of midfield behind (or alongside?) Yaya Toure and Fernandinho. Additionally there is the signing of Bruno Zuculini, a midfielder from River Plate. The latter signing is one I'll confess to knowing little about. At 21 and only costing £1.5million, he may be one for the future. But at that age that should come soon, so I'm a little puzzled by that.

The signing of Bacary Sagna looks like a replacement and upgrade on Micah Richards. Sadly Micah has been injured for most of the last couple of years and has looked a shadow of the player he once was when he has played. This looks a sensible move all round as perhaps a change of club would help Micah re-discover his form of a few years ago. But Micah Richards is still at City. Is the intention still to move him on? Or did the FFP punishment from UEFA and the restrictions on the squad size (and need for homegrown players in the squad) change City's mind about letting him go?

The one signing which is an obvious upgrade is Willy Caballero. With Costel Pantillimon leaving, the probable back-up keeper is much better than before.

But what of players leaving? As the season ended there were two worrying stories that emerged. Firstly there was the ridiculous stories around Yaya Toure. To me, this always looked like an agent stirring things up to try and engineer a better deal or move for the player. Thankfully this appears to be resolved. The other story was that James Milner wanted to leave. Little more has been heard about this which isn't that surprising. Milner always strikes me as someone who will do something in the correct, 'boring' way. If the story is true, he would probably have let the club know as soon as the season was over and then everything would have happened behind closed doors. In this case, it's likely no news will be heard unless there is a transfer. I hope that we keep hearing nothing about this.

Finally, what is left to be done? The obvious one is that so far there has been no central defender coming in. The rumoured signing of Eliaquim Mangala has been just that, rumoured, for months now. If this does go through then on the face of it, City would have done all they 'need' to do. But I do think there is more to be done. There are a number of players in the squad who are perhaps now surplus to requirements. Scott Sinclair and Jack Rodwell are two who spring to mind. In the case of Sinclair, after an underwhelming first season at City he spent all last season on loan at West Brom where he played only 6 games. In Rodwell's case he is now 5th choice in the centre of midfield. Would it be a good move to sell both of these?

So has this been good or bad for City? If, in what is left of the transfer window, a quality centre back arrives and a couple of fringe players leave (either permanently or on long term loans) then I would argue it will have been good. If no centre back arrives then I would be a little worried. There are some out there arguing that City are repeating mistakes made two years ago. True there has not yet been a world class signing but this misses the point. Two years ago City were 2 1/2 years into Mancini's reign as manager. This side is a year into Pellegrini's reign and is still developing. At times last year this was obvious. Two years ago many of the signings came right at the end of the transfer window, too late to be part of pre-season and it felt like they were not first choices. This year City have been active early and appear to have done a lot of their business already. This is a sign that targets have been identified and signed, unlike 2 years ago. If the remaining business is done in the same low-key manner, this will not be a sign of mistakes, it will be a sign of a club knowing what they want and getting it done.

Another World Cup, another round of Blamestorming

Another World Cup campaign has come to an end for England and we're already into yet another round of blamestorming. The pattern has been repeated for decades. England go to a tournament, in most cases don't achieve much, then there is a storm of criticism and a search for something to blame. The unwritten assumption in all this is usually that if this one thing had been changed, we'd have won the tournament.

But we've tried changing things. Take the manager, for example. We've had the people's choice (Keegan), the laid back foreigner (Svenn), the promising young English coach (McClaren), the stern foreigner (Capello), and now we have the experienced, well travelled English coach. The results haven't improved. The cry of 'change this' is mis-guided, we've tried so many things that surely we'd have hit on the right one by accident by now. If there was one thing that could be changed to fix it.

The other cry you often here is that the players don't care enough, that they lack passion. This is usually said by people who don't watch much football outside the big games. They seem to think that showing more passion and working harder would make the difference. Even if they were right about the lack of passion, working harder (or running around more) can be counter-productive. Take the game against Italy in Manaus. England's tactics in the game were to allow Italy possession then hit them at pace on the counter-attack. They played well but tired towards the end of the game. This was always likely to happen given the tactics and the conditions the game was played in. Showing more 'passion' earlier on would have led to the team tiring earlier and risking being taken apart late on by an Italy side with more energy.

The plain truth is that the England team is just not as good as we think it is, and hasn't been for a long time. We typically hover somewhere between 5th and 15th in the world, meaning we're a team who should average around the quarter finals or last-16 of the World Cup, which is what we do. In this World Cup we haven't had the results but I felt we played much better, especially against Italy, than in either of the last 2 World Cups. The difference in the results could be down to us simply having a much tougher draw.

If there is no quick fix, how do we improve things? The first thing to ask before answering this question is what is holding us back at international level? The current squad has a good balance of promising young players and experienced, proven winners (at club level). Several members of the squad have won the Champions League. But not enough. In some positions there is a worrying lack of options. For example at right back there is nobody near an out-of-form Glen Johnson, and we haven't produced a good defensive midfielder in years. This highlights the issue - there just aren't enough players of the right quality being produced.

The recent FA commission at least recognised this and identified where there is a problem preventing more players coming through (not enough competitive playing time in the 18-20 age range) but their proposed solution (B teams) would risk ripping apart one of the great strengths of English football - the depth and strength of the football pyramid. Instead of harnessing this to produce more talent that could rise up, the change risks its strength.

But at least the FA Commission identified an issue and proposed a bold and dramatic change to try and solve the issue. The challenge now is to find an alternative, better solution. Beyond proposals to produce more coaches (without answering how these would be funded and how they would be used), I've yet to hear a decent alternative.

Personally I would start earlier. I'd like to see the schools involved. Sadly there didn't appear to be much (if any) involvement from the English Schools FA with the FA Commission. This is a pity as this is where the vast majority of children first come into contact with anything like coaching. I'd like to see a new coaching qualification created for school teachers and set a target of having a qualified coach in each secondary school within 10 years. Flood the school system with coaches, raising standards from the very start of football careers. This could be done if the Academies were all required to train a certain number of teachers each year, with the FA also training teachers.

The truth is that, whichever solution is tried, there is no quick fix. Long term systematic failings in the English game require long term changes and patience to see them through. This is something Germany recognised in the late-90's, and they acted. They didn't stop when they reached the World Cup final in 2002, recognising that as a false dawn due to a team getting a very lucky draw, and they are now seeing the benefits. If English football wants to stop having blamestorming sessions in public after every major championship, it too needs to act and be patient to see it through.

Manchester City Women's WSL Debut, or a work in progress

I've just spent the evening watching Manchester City's women's team make their debut in the Women's Super League. First a slight confession. I haven't watched a huge amount of women's football over the years, just a few England games, one GB game at the Olympics and the odd Women's FA Cup Final. Every time I've made a mental note to watch more and not followed up on it. That said, a few observations on tonight's game

• Considering Manchester City were away at last seasons champions, it was a decent performance. Liverpool probably just deserved to win but City gave them a good game, creating a decent number of chances.
• But they do need to learn when to play out from the back, and when just to clear it quickly. In the first half they were very lucky not to give away at least one goal by playing out almost suicidally.
• Toni Duggan looks like a great player. But City need to learn how to use her talent. On the basis of this game she needs to spend more time on the shoulder of the last defender and needs the right service. Given that, there's plenty of goals there.
• For Liverpool, Gemma Davison was the most impressive player. Lots of pace and a good work rate.
• For City Jill Scott, Steph Houghton and Krystle Johnston had a good game, I was surprised to see Krystle substituted.
• The most noticeable downside for me was that it was too obvious who the full time players were. Each team has 5 full time players and while you would expect these to be the best players in terms of skill, it was also noticeable that the full time players were those quickest and with the higher work-rate. This is a direct result of them being able to train full time . Unfortunately, women's football cannot currently support a full time professional league. It is growing (last season there were 4 full time players per club) but there is some way to go.
• Finally, it's good to see BT Sport will be showing regular live games from the WSL,  I've made a mental note to follow it and definitely intend to follow up on that this time.

Cup final 1 of 8 - done

Saturday lunchtime ended up being a comfortable win but didn't feel that way until we had a very large slice (about 5 yards worth) of luck. After that, City were dominant, before that Southampton were the better side, although without creating many chances. A few observations on the game

• Dzeko is scoring regularly but still misses several chances a game. Negredo just can't buy a goal at the minute. The effort is there, but the confidence has gone. He just needs some luck.
• The title could come down to this - can City get a second striker fit and scoring. Aguero is close to fitness and it was good to see Jovetic playing and scoring, but we'll need a few goals from Aguero, Negredo and Jovetic between now and the end of the season.
• Southampton dominated possession in the first half through their passing. At times they were knocking the ball about simply and quickly. The key for this was their movement off the ball. This is a side of the game that doesn't come across well on TV, but is noticeable when at the game, Southampton would almost always have a couple of players free in space which meant there was always an easy pass on. They did this by quickly moving away from a marker and positioning themselves half-way between City players. It's very intelligent and effective when a team like Southampton does this.
• Two things changed the game so that City dominated the second half. The 2 goals before half time (the first of which was one of the more obvious offsides you will see), and the introduction of Javi Garcia. I thought Garcia was very effective, sitting a bit deeper than Fernandinho had been. He broke up Southampton's passing rhythm and helped City get their own rhythm going.
• This looked, on paper, to be our trickiest home game left to play. But we can't get complacent. Every game is now a cup final for us. The first is done, there are still 7 to go.