Toone punishes City’s approach
The Manchester City head coach, Gareth Taylor, says his side will not change their style of passing the ball out from the back, despite conceding possession frequently while deploying that tactic in their very sloppy display in a 4-2 loss at home to neighbours Manchester United. Taylor lamented his team’s poor execution of such passes, saying: “The timing was wrong, our decision-making was wrong, the movement to receive was off, we were playing the passes too late or too soon. [But] as much as United were aggressive, I still think it was us playing into their hands and little bit, and we needed to be smarter.” Taylor said that, when his team did try to play long balls, Manchester United were “mopping it up” and so he insisted his team would not simply give up on their style, adding: “We are not going to become, certainly in my reign, a team that will smash the ball long and play long kind of percentage football.” TG
