Manchester City vs Wolves: Kevin De Bruyne’s absence leaves City lacking in creativity in home defeat

The defending champions are already eight points behind Liverpool, and they looked lost without their key creator against Wolves

It had incision and precision, a defence-splitting pass bent into the striker’s path. It was delivered from the touchline, 30 yards away, and sent him scurrying in on goal. Raul Jimenez was the recipient, Riyad Mahrez his supplier. It was inadvertent. The defence he had split was his own. The forward the Algerian found was not Sergio Aguero, but his Wolves counterpart. Fernandinho came to Mahrez’s rescue, recovering to block the Mexican’s shot, but it felt the lone piece of creativity Manchester City produced in their first home defeat of 2019.

Fernandinho’s valiant efforts came in vain. His amounted to a heroic damage-limitation exercise. Alongside him – or, more frequently, on his backside as his rash attempts to throw himself into challenges backfired – was Nicolas Otamendi. Hyperbolically branded ‘Superman’ by Pep Guardiola two years ago, the Argentinian was more blooperman in a display of clownish ineptitude. “They were quite good,” said the City manager, in an implausible defence of an errant defence.

Yet as Wolves’ keen counter-attackers exposed City’s soft underbelly, it was a moot point who the champions missed more: the sidelined centre-backs John Stones and Aymeric Laporte, or the missing midfielder Kevin De Bruyne.

While Liverpool have assumed an eight-point advantage in the table that matters most, a City man boasts an extraordinary lead in one particular chart. De Bruyne has twice as many assists as anyone else; not just at City, but in the division as a whole.

Lacking a player who has made eight goals and who has delivered 29 key passes, City registered two shots on target against a Wolves team who had conceded three goals to Everton and five to Chelsea. The defiance of Willy Boly and Conor Coady showed the defensive improvement Nuno Espirito Santo has engineered since then but City, who had mustered the most goals in the opening seven games of a top-flight season since the 19th century, drew a blank.

De Bruyne went unnamed in Guardiola’s analysis, but he is the constant in City’s creativity. “Today was the day we create less than the others,” he said. “Even [in defeat to] Norwich we create a lot. Our process to create chances was not good. We face many teams defending deep and more or less we found a way to do it but today we had a problem.”

Those deep defences came be unlocked by De Bruyne’s delivery. He can be Beckham-esque crosser or Gerrard-esque force of nature. His capacity to make things happen renders him a catalyst. City posted 98 points last season when De Bruyne figured in fewer than a third of the minutes. This time, however, they could not compensate for the talisman’s absence.

David Silva was below par, to the extent there was the rare sight of City’s captain being substituted when his side required a goal. Sergio Aguero was isolated, restricted to 24 touches. Mahrez’s early-season excellence felt a mirage on the day.

Perhaps it did not help, either, that Bernardo Silva, who stepped so adeptly into De Bruyne’s shoes for much of last season, began on the bench. Despite his hat-trick against Watford, the Portuguese has not touched the heights he hit last season when Guardiola, who described him as “the best player in the best team,” felt he ought to have been named Footballer of the Year. Thus far, he trails far behind candidates such as De Bruyne, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino. Maybe his impending FA charge has affected his confidence, but Silva brought improvement in his cameo.

But the man who began on the right of the midfield trident was the conundrum that is Ilkay Gundogan, neither an attacking midfielder nor a defensive one. The German offered precision in possession, but not penetration. City missed De Bruyne’s infield crossing from the inside-right channel. Guardiola often mentions that City lack height, but such is the accuracy of the Belgian’s delivery that they do not need it when he picks out their diminutive attackers.

Their total of 35 crosses was scarcely the 81 David Moyes’ Manchester United infamously attempted against Fulham, but Wolves’ giants headed them away and crowded City out to cut out the cut-backs. The full-backs Guardiola fielded, with Oleksandr Zinchenko replacing Kyle Walker at the break, had a combined 268 touches, but Wolves’ 3-5-2 formation meant they were often the spare men.

One of them, Joao Cancelo marked his first Premier League start by coughing up possession for the first of Adama Traore’s double. “Loose balls,” lamented Guardiola but Cancelo’s misplaced pass proved the most influential one a De Bruyne-less City played all day.