Revisiting top 10 funniest season outcomes: Spurs, Arsenal on track, Liverpool not so much<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThey\u2019ve not been ruthless in this first half \u2013 they should really have killed the game off,\u201d Gary Neville said on commentary. \u201cThese last few minutes will have bugged Guardiola. They\u2019re letting the game drift a little bit. It\u2019s sloppy from Manchester City. There\u2019s a bit of complacency here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Had it not been for some very average finishing from Burnley, City could have been in real trouble here. Zian Flemming scuffed one effort wide and blazed another over the bar. Quilindschy Hartman diddled Bernardo Silva in the box before forcing Gianluigi Donnarumma into a save. Hjalmar Ekdal and Bashir Humphreys got in each other\u2019s way having both got on the end of one of several James Ward Prowse deliveries City didn\u2019t deal with efficiently.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s strange \u2013 Man City aren\u2019t really defending,\u201d Micah Richards said in the Sky Sports studio, and Neville picked out the Citizens\u2019 beacon of composure as a tell-tale indication of their \u201cnervousness\u201d as they continued to look off it after the break.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s more uncomfortable than he should be on the ball and in his defensive work. He\u2019s normally so smooth, Marc Guehi,\u201d Neville said.<\/p>\n
Guardiola was \u201cnot happy\u201d on the touchline and his mood didn\u2019t improve upon seeing Doku fire an off-balance shot over the bar from the edge of the box following a 22-pass move. \u201cHe can\u2019t believe that \u2013 he hates stuff like that,\u201d Neville said.<\/p>\n
A poor pass from Cherki forced Antoine Semenyo to stretch as he shot over the bar, Haaland hit the outside of the post after a fortunate break of the ball, Savinho drew a simple save from Dubravka after a Guehi cross found him at the back post, Nico Gonzalez shot just wide and O\u2019Reilly got a Cherki cross stuck under his feet in the six-yard box. They had a lot of chances and ended the game with an xG of 3.15 to Burnley\u2019s 0.57.<\/p>\n
But every time the cameras cut to Guardiola he was either shaking his head or dramatically slumping down into his seat and complaining about something or other to assistant Pep Lijnders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just not the urgency we expected from Manchester City. Goal difference could be a big factor and this was a golden opportunity here,\u201d Neville said, before insisting they would \u201chave to play a lot better\u201d in their remaining games this season to pip Arsenal to the Premier League title and delivering a five-word line to demonstrate the incredible shift in focus from kick-off to the 85th minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe won\u2019t want another shot,\u201d Neville added.<\/p>\n
There were no further shots, but \u201cthe absolute unthinkable\u201d was still possible right up to the final whistle as Burnley filled the City box from a free-kick and then a corner.<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t bottle it but the tension was plain through snatched finishes, unsure defending and the looks on away fan faces in those final few minutes. Job done, but \u201copportunity\u201d missed in a game we suspect Arsenal might have enjoyed almost as much as their title rivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe absolute unthinkable\u201d was on the cards in the last action of a game everyone assumed would be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13717,3708,10287,914,42,8579,43,16909,40,38,41,39,9418],"class_list":{"0":"post-412536","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-burnley","9":"tag-f365-features","10":"tag-f365-says","11":"tag-front-page","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-manchester-city","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-pep-guardiola","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}