Manchester City have long been renowned for their attractive style of attacking football under the guidance of Pep Guardiola. However, the team struggled defensively at the beginning of the 2020/21 Premier League campaign and that was compounded by the 5-2 defeat at home by Leicester City.
In fact, Manchester City kept just 2 clean sheets in their opening 8 Premier League matches of the season and the 2-0 loss at Tottenham Hotspur saw them adrift in the title race.
The loss at Spurs came on the 21st of November but fast forward to the 14th of February and Manchester City sit top of the Premier League. So, what has changed and how have Manchester City moved into such a commanding position in the table?
A quick glance at recent Manchester City results shows they have improved dramatically as a defensive unit. The Premier League favourites have conceded just a single goal in their last 8 Premier League games at the time of writing and that came at the home of defending champions, Liverpool. Therefore, Manchester City have kept 7 clean sheets in their last 8 Premier League fixtures, which is a tremendous record.
The introduction of Portuguese central defender Ruben Dias has had a major impact on the Manchester City defence this season. Despite being only 23 years of age, Dias has transformed the Manchester City defence and built a strong partnership with forgotten man, John Stones. Go back to the summer months and it appeared as though Stones was on his way out of the club following the arrival of Dias and Nathan Ake.
However, Stones is now enjoying the best football of his career at Manchester City and has even kept Aymeric Laporte out of the team. The absence of Laporte was cited as the main reason why Manchester City fell so far behind Liverpool in the title race last season but Stones has moved above the Frenchman in the pecking order at the Etihad Stadium.
The pressing from the front has also returned to Manchester city's game in recent months. The likes of Raheem Sterling, Bernardo Silva, Gabriel Jesus, and Ferran Torres are working hard to close down the opposition and Bernardo appears to be back to his best, which has been a big boost.
In terms of work rate from a defensive point of view, Bernardo has plenty of energy and is happy to close down opposition defenders and midfielders in their own defensive third. This has led to a decrease in attacking threat against the Manchester City defensive line.
However, we have also seen a reduction in the number of individual defensive errors from Manchester City. The back four are playing to a consistently high standard and it is rare a mistake is leading to a goal for the opposition. Aside from the Dias penalty incident against Liverpool, they have not put a foot wrong.
Therefore, if a team is going to score against Manchester City it is going to be through good quality attacking football. To be able to do that, a team must have possession of the ball and that is difficult against this team.