Enzo Maresca rejected suggestions that Manchester City's setup left them too exposed after a third straight Premier League defeat. The Blues lost 3-1 to Nottingham Forest, having won their opening seven league games, and now trail Arsenal by six points.
Maresca on individual errors and system
Maresca was unhappy with his team's commitment in a first half in which glaring individual errors left them 2-0 down inside 19 minutes. While he did not want to blame individual players, he also did not accept some criticism of the collective.
When it was put to him that too much was asked of Elliot Anderson in midfield, he said: "No I think you concede transitions when you lose the ball like the first goal and you concede transitions when you don't win duels."
Asked if the number of individual mistakes pointed to a problem with the system, he said: "I need to give you the same answer. When you lose balls in the way we lost the first goal or when we were attacking and then when we lose the ball, we were not able to win duels or the second ball to recover immediately it's not a matter for three or four. It's about winning duels. That is the first thing you have to do in these kind of games."
Transition goals and a slow start
Maresca described the second and third goals conceded in transition as "copy and paste". "The second one we lost the duels in the middle of the pitch and the third one we lost the duel on the edge of their box. From there, if you make a mistake or don't win duels, you can concede transitions."
"The first half we were not good enough, we didn't match the intensity that these kind of games require. We conceded one, we conceded two, then we tried to react. But most of the time in football when you are 2-0 down it is too late. Second half we started much, much better, we score one, we should have scored probably more and then in transition after we again lost a duel we concede the third goal."
"Today, for me the big mistake has been that we tried to react after we conceded two goals and in football most of the time that is too late."
