Enzo Maresca has now had two first days at Manchester City and both told him the same thing. Seven days after conceding to Arsenal inside twenty four seconds in the Community Shield, his first league match was six minutes from a home defeat by Bournemouth. It finished 2-1, and the reason it did was a substitute.
Cherki decided it in six minutes
Rayan Cherki came on with the game at 1-0 and made both goals. His corner on 84 minutes found Marc Guéhi unmarked for the header that levelled it. His pass on 90+1 released Joško Gvardiol, whose finish stood after VAR overturned the offside flag. Two touches of real quality in a match that had none for eighty minutes.
The numbers said City should have won by three
City had 66 per cent of the ball, 13 shots to five, eight corners to three and 2.36 expected goals against 0.63. On that evidence this was a comfortable afternoon, and it was nothing of the kind. The gap between the two accounts is Erling Haaland.
Haaland missed three of them
He pulled wide on 13 after Nico O'Reilly had carried City into the box. His header on 39 was tipped around the post by Petrovic. On 75, with Guéhi's cross begging, he skied it. Guéhi himself headed a Phil Foden corner off target from three yards on 52. A striker of Haaland's record converts one of those on most afternoons, and City would have been out of sight by half time.
Bournemouth had a plan and it nearly held
Marco Rose's side defended in a low block and waited for the one transition that mattered. It came on 26 minutes, Evanilson driving a low cross that Marcus Tavernier finished at the back post. They stayed within one goal for almost an hour after that, and their four shots on target from five attempts was the more efficient afternoon of the two.
"We had some transition situations and scored a really nice goal," Rose said. "It's about details. The game is never over here."
Maresca is not pretending
"In this moment, it's a matter to find solutions," he said afterwards. "Unfortunately, this is a work in progress." That is an honest reading of a side that has now played two competitive matches under him and been second best for long stretches of both, while beating a side that managed five shots all afternoon through a substitute's improvisation rather than through anything structural.
The three points matter more than the manner in August. City go to Crystal Palace on Friday, Bournemouth host Everton on Saturday, and Maresca has a week to find something that does not depend on Cherki coming on.
