Pep Guardiola and City have eased back to take a huge leap forward

Manchester City have changed the way they press...though West Ham did offer some hope to the chasing pack...

It is a measure of how well West Ham played at Manchester City that for a time it felt like a contest. City won in the end...but there were perhaps 10 minutes before half-time when they were unsettled.

...

The Premier League title is as good as done...but none of this was inevitable. [Before twenty straight], their squad looked flat and their recruitment looked questionable. Guardiola’s attempts to modify the approach seemed only to be causing hesitancy.

[They] made seven changes to the side that dismissed Gladbach on Wednesday...[one of them Cancelo]

The intensity of the press is something notoriously difficult to measure statistically because there are so many variables, but looking at the proportion of pressures a side makes that take place in the opposition’s final third is perhaps as useful as any:...For the previous three seasons City and Liverpool vied with each other at the top of that chart, but this season Liverpool are way out in front while City are fifth. They have eased back and, now that the initial teething problems that were exploited most obviously by Leicester are past, no longer appear so vulnerable to the ball played in behind them.

[I din’t understand that point. It would seem to me that pressuring in the opponent’s "last third,” in front of the opponent’s goal, would be a good thing. Where City has been victimized time and again by Leicester was in midfield.]

Perhaps the chances West Ham did create offer opponents some hope. City can be caught out by balls behind the full-back, especially perhaps when Oleksandr Zinchenko rather than João Cancelo plays on the left: it was that route that brought both the chance Antonio struck against the post and his goal. Decent crosses, such as the one that led to the late Issa Diop header, can catch out any side. And Ederson was oddly skittish with his kicking.

[I watched the 11' of highlights that were available, I didn't see Ederson skittish with his kicking.        . He had a hard collision very early on but there was no mention of it for the rest of the match.]

...with Sergio Agüero making his first start since October, there was perhaps a slight lack of creativity. [I was actually worried about this. Positionless was a creature of necessity with Kun out, it has worked marvelously. Now with Kun back?]