{"id":9573,"date":"2017-11-22T22:16:24","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T22:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disnaija.com\/?p=9573"},"modified":"2017-11-22T22:28:37","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T22:28:37","slug":"manchester-city-1-0-feyenoord-five-things-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/manchester-city-1-0-feyenoord-five-things-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester City 1-0 Feyenoord: Five Things We Learned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>On a wet Tuesday night at the Etihad, Manchester City laboured to a 1-0 win against Feyenoord to secure top spot in Group F. But what did we learn from this encounter?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Fernandinho is key<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Having made 17 appearances so far this season for City, the Brazilian was given a well-earned rest as he was named amongst the substitutes on Tuesday night. What became apparent as the contest went on was how much City missed their midfield enforcer. City didn\u2019t manage to control the middle of the park quite like they have in games this season as they missed Fernandinho\u2019s incisive passes. At times they also looked exposed at the back due to the absence of Fernandinho\u2019s defensive presence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sterling\u2019s new lease of life under Pep<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So far this season, Raheem Sterling has been simply fantastic. Having struggled for form since his controversial move from Liverpool in 2015, Sterling has now scored 11 goals in 17 appearances this term. He has already equalled his tally from his first season at City and has surpassed his tally from last season; we\u2019re only in November. Scorer of the only goal on Tuesday, Sterling is excelling in Pep\u2019s free flowing attack and looks like he\u2019ll only get better.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"ICck_JNQRPtDSBkGVmRD5A\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/877186678\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'ICck_JNQRPtDSBkGVmRD5A',sig:'ZeBjoJ3IAiTuDNgaEl9UaR7OlCaKR4b3y5Ungnn1Dwg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'877186678',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>City play better on the counter<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Like in a few homes games this season, City dominated possession (76% against Feyenoord) but created few meaningful chances. The problem seems to occur when teams go to the Etihad and set up defensively. The organised mass of bodies behind the ball prevents City from using their pace to exploit out of position defenders. This forces City to pick out pin-point through balls that don\u2019t always come off. Guardiola needs to find a way for City to utilise the pace and directness of De Bruyne, Sterling and co at home, as they so often do on their travels (e.g. 4-2 win in Naples).<\/p>\n<p>Although they are now condemned to finishing dead last in Group F, Feyenoord showed enough to suggest that they can be competitive in Europe in the future. The young attacking talents of Bo\u00ebtius and Larsson caused City problems at times, while defensively Feyenoord looked a lot sounder then they did in match day one\u2019s reverse fixture. However, their participation in Europe next season is by no means guaranteed, as they currently occupy 7<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0position in the Eredivisie.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"TRlHNaISQwZbE9aSpfhkcw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/877186492\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'TRlHNaISQwZbE9aSpfhkcw',sig:'qTwCxY4Rw2NEeq8eqIkiw3viSy7Kg3KKSJaWc1bi59w=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'877186492',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>City are genuine Champions League contenders<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is the sign of Champions to get a result when not playing well, and on Tuesday night City did just that. While this was one of City\u2019s least eye-catching performances of the season, the Blues still had enough quality to grab a winner and they still looked defensively solid without both first choice centre backs. With such a performance in seasons\u2019 gone by, City would have found a way to draw or even lose this game. No longer do City have to perform brilliantly in Europe to get a result.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"http:\/\/thefootballfaithful.com\/manchester-city-1-0-feyenoord-five-things-we-learned\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Manchester City 1-0 Feyenoord: Five things we learned<\/a> was written by <a href=\"http:\/\/thefootballfaithful.com\/author\/alex-brotherton\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Alex Brotherton<\/a> and appeared first on <a href=\"http:\/\/thefootballfaithful.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Football Faithful<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sourced From: <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/thefootballfaithful.com\/manchester-city-1-0-feyenoord-five-things-we-learned\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Football Faithful<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a wet Tuesday night at the Etihad, Manchester City laboured to a 1-0 win against Feyenoord to secure top spot in Group F. But what did we learn from this encounter? Fernandinho is key Having made 17 appearances so far this season for City, the Brazilian was given a well-earned rest as he was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9508],"tags":[1305,9511,777,9512,2446,697],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}