Manchester City's 1-1 draw with Aston Villa on Saturday had a familiar feeling to it. Not because of the result itself — after all, City had won 14 of their previous 16 league meetings with Villa — but because of the manner in which it came about.
It was the kind of performance we saw a few times last season, particularly in the spring when Liverpool reduced City's lead at the top of the table from 14 points (with two games in hand) to one. Pep Guardiola's side were not at their brilliant best, but for large parts of the game they were pretty good.
When Kevin de Bruyne crossed to the back post and Erling Haaland found himself in acres of space to score the opener, City seemed to spark into life. They played their best football of the game in the 25 minutes that followed, awoken from their first half slumber by a goal that came from nothing.
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But City created chances aplenty; between the 64th and 71st minutes, four chances came and went. Haaland pulled two fine stops out of Emiliano Martinez while De Bruyne hit the crossbar with a wicked free-kick before riffling a snap-shot just wide.
City were pummelling Villa by this point, but they just couldn't score. In 74th minute Leon Bailey equalised for the hosts and 1-1 is how the scoreline stayed. Over the 90 minutes City had 13 shots — four of which were on target and four of which were classed as big chances. City recorded an expected goals rating of 2.1 compared to Villa's 0.34, but they returned to Manchester with just a point.
City dropping points after wasting plenty of chances to kill off the game... sounds familiar, right? Liverpool at home and away (both 2-2), Crystal Palace (0-0), Southampton (1-1) and the Champions League elimination at the hands of Real Madrid last season all spring to mind as examples of this last season.
City won the title playing largely without an out-and-out striker; so many supporters and critics concluded that the only thing that would improve Guardiola's team would be a reliable goal-scorer.
That striker arrived this summer in the shape of Haaland, and having scored 10 goals in his opening six Premier League games, his impact has been obvious. But not even the greatest goal-scorer in world football can allow City to escape the reality of football, the hard truth that sometimes, even if it is less than one per cent of the time, elite footballers don't score the chances that they should.
Last season the likes of Phil Foden, Riyad Mahrez and Bernardo Silva showed they are prone to missing the odd big chance, and while Haaland is clearly more clinical than his teammates, he will sometimes miss as well. Although City fans might like to pretend he is, the 22-year-old is not some kind of robot who scores 100 per cent of the shots he takes.
Many see City as just about as perfect as a football team can hope to be. Haaland was heralded as the signing that would make them perfect, but such a thing does not exist in football. Wasteful days in-front of goal will likely be less common this season with Haaland, but they will still happen.
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