Pep Guardiola identified a failure to make more passes in the final third as a reason for Manchester City dropping points at Newcastle United on Sunday.
City played out a thrilling 3-3 draw at St James' Park, with Erling Haaland and Bernardo Silva pulling City back from 3-1 down after Ilkay Gundogan had given the Blues an early lead.
City looked slick and comfortable in the opening stages, but after about 25 minutes the hosts started to cut through City's defence with ease. Guardiola 's defenders struggled to cope with the pace of Allan Saint-Maximin and the doggedness of Miguel Almiron, and that only continued as the game became end-to-end and stretched.
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It was the kind of game that Guardiola hates; one that City struggle to control and fail to squeeze the life out of. Although City did enjoy 69 per cent possession of the ball, Newcastle were ruthless on the counter-attack and City struggled to transition from attack into defence.
"They [Newcastle] have everything, pace and quality," Guardiola said when asked what he thought of Newcastle's performance. "[St James' Park is a] difficult place to come, we behaved really really good again, but the only problem is that when we break the lines and run... if you finish the action [attack] it's no problem, but if you don't finish you don't arrive to control Saint-Maximin and Almiron.
"We should spend more time in the final third, give more passes in that moment but it's difficult. If Erling [Haaland] is going, Phil [Foden] has that aggression to get there. If it's Jack Grealish and Riyad Mahrez they are more calm and help us to come together, and if we lose the ball we are there and they [the opposition] cannot run [counter-attack].
The idea behind playing more passes in attack, rather than attacking through quick transitions, is that it gives the City players more time to get into position and guard against quick breakaways.
That didn't happen on Sunday, hence why the likes of Rodri, Walker and Stones frequently looked out of position when Newcastle broke forward.
"In the first half when we lost the ball it was like this. We can run, lose the ball and the back four is so far away. Sometimes we have this problem, it happens. Not because we played badly, you know how many chances we created.
"Why not give credit to Newcastle? Brentford beat [Manchester] United 4-0 and everything was criticism of United - why not give credit?"
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