The overwhelming likelihood is that Manchester City will be fine. A draw away from home in the Champions League is never a bad result, and in front of their own supporters in three weeks’ time they should probably finish the job they left frustratingly undone here. And yet if the 1-1 draw against Nottingham Forest on Sunday could be dismissed as a fluke, this was an altogether more worrying display from Manchester City, who seemed to play the second half of this game in strange pastel shades.
Of course, City is a club that has rendered itself largely immune to panic over the years, that in its stickiest moments simply trusts in the redemptive power of a well-drilled process and 75% possession. Paradoxically, that was probably their undoing here: the curious lack of urgency as RB Leipzig raised the tempo and briefly threatened to take the tie away from them. As the first XI toiled on the pitch, Phil Foden and Julian Álvarez grimaced away on the bench. Full time came and went with Pep Guardiola not making a single substitution.
Afterwards Guardiola was aggressively sanguine, if such a thing is possible. He applauded his players’ efforts and insisted that keeping the tie alive was an achievement in itself. He declared that Leipzig were the better, quicker side in transition and that his objective throughout had been to control the game. Indeed, there is an increasingly Mourinho-esque streak to him in these situations: playing up his own side’s weaknesses, playing up the opposition’s strengths, offering up analyses that often defy the evidence of the eyes.
City did have control of the game in the first half. Riyad Mahrez opened the scoring, Leipzig looked wan and timid and briefly City threatened to end the tie on the night. That they did not end up losing here was due more to Leipzig profligacy than their own virtue. Roared on by a deafening home crowd, Marco Rose’s side deservedly equalised through Josip Gvardiol, had chances enough to win it and by the end were pushing for a winner.
So what happened in that second half? Leipzig pushed up the pitch a little, moved the ball with a little more speed and courage, brought on Benjamin Henrichs and Christopher Nkunku to inject some tempo. But to a large extent City allowed them to do so. They were imprecise in possession, passive at the back, and have now gone five games without a clean sheet. Erling Haaland missed one good chance but mainly loped around while the ball was somewhere else. City’s inability to get the ball to their top scorer is becoming a lingering problem.
But for 45 minutes it worked like a dream. With Kevin De Bruyne out through illness, Guardiola deployed the system he normally uses in these situations: Kyle Walker pushed high to provide width and crosses, Mahrez tucked in a little, Bernardo Silva deeper to provide control. Above all, it was a team built for stability, for patience, for slowly tightening the screw. And there is a kind of imperial menace to City when they are feeling games out like this: like a band of burglars casing the joint, examining the escape routes, forensically scanning the edifice for weakness.
Gradually Guardiola was overloading those midfield areas, sending Mahrez and Jack Grealish on central forays, waiting for the mistake. It arrived from Xaver Schlager, forced to make one stressful decision too many and coughing up the ball in midfield. Grealish – possibly City’s best player on the night – devoured it. Ilkay Gündogan executed the neat flick. Mahrez did the rest.
And yet as Leipzig began to boss the second half, nervous energy began to spread through City like chickenpox. Sensing there was a storm to be weathered, Guardiola knelt on the edge of his technical area in supplication. Walker conceded a needless corner, generating the sort of pressure vortex that City are normally so good at creating themselves. Eventually Gvardiol rose titanically to nod in Marcel Halstenberg’s high, hanging delivery. Over in the opposite corner of the stadium City’s fans stood in grizzling silence, perhaps wondering if Lord Pannick might have done a better job of heading away the cross.
There was a late penalty shout for handball against Henrichs, but Guardiola declared himself satisfied enough with the decision. Besides, a win would certainly have flattered City here. They should still have more than enough for Leizpig in the second leg, but Rose’s team will travel to Manchester knowing not simply that City can be hurt, but that they can be bullied too. And for all Guardiola’s entreaties for control, at half-time this tie is that rarest of things: a situation that remains tantalisingly open to negotiation.
