City Fall at St. James' Park

 Amar Zukancic

    Well that just wasn't good enough. After a hot streak and a good international break, City traveled to Tyneside and came out on the wrong side of a 2-1 defeat. 

    From the beginning of the match it looked like it would be a long day for City and the ball just didn’t want to hit the back of the net. City’s best player on the day, Jeremy Doku, started off red hot creating a load of chances but Haaland out of all people couldn't seem to find the back of the net. This was his third blank of the season which shows just how amazing he's been, but him slotting away that early chance could've made it a completely different game. Foden also had a chance before half that he put wide, that with the form he's in you'd expect him to slot it away. We went 1-0 down to a pinpoint finish from Harvey Barnes, and a few minutes later we finally got the goal we deserved through Ruben Dias. It was his first Premier League goal since December 2021, which was against Newcastle of all teams. Minutes following Dias’ equalizer, Barnes netted his second off of a suspect onside call which makes you question PGMOL. As they were making the VAR decision they weirdly didn't show it on the television or in the stadium, and 10 minutes later they showed a computer generated graphic from a weird angle that kept Bruno Guimaraes onside. 

    Overall it just wasn't good enough from us this weekend. No one part of the team was terribly bad, but no one part stood out. The fullbacks still looked great and Doku again put in an amazing shift, but the midfield and attack was out of sync and we were unlucky to be on the other side of a few great saves from Nick Pope. We have a big Champions League match at the Etihad on Tuesday, and then we're back at it in the Premier League on the weekend trying to close the 7 point gap behind Arsenal.