A Valuable Clean-Sheet
There hasn’t been many since their opening winning streak but City look well on it again. After defeating Crystal Palace away 3-0 and West Ham 4-0, City can once again boast about their defense after shambolic performances throughout this campaign. There’s something to be said for the rotation of defenders that Pep Guardiola seems intent on.
Stones and Otamendi looked calm and collected at the back—and why shouldn’t they when West Ham were only allowed one attempt on target. With Vincent Kompany *fingers crossed* back from yet another injury, these three will seem to battle it out, week after week , to decide who gets the start. We know that the Kompany-Otamendi partnership can work, as we have seen many times.
Calm, cool and collected, those are the three words City’s back four must be repeating to themselves throughout the match. There haven’t been many moments where they were asked to step-up today but when they were, they were well up for it.
They provided security for Caballero and offered some assistance moving down the wings of the pitch. All which seemed to be too much for the West Ham defenders. West Ham simply were allowed to be in control of the game today and the statistics showed: Over 70% possession to City is only the tip of the iceberg.