Brentford – Manchester City: City Play It Safe After Haaland Fires Citizens Into Lead (0-1)

Manchester City beat Brentford 1-0 at the G-Tech Community Stadium to secure three crucial points. An early goal from Erling Haaland gave City the lead in the first half & City duly defended their lead playing cautiously in possession to secure a much-needed win.

Tactical analysis and match report by Gaurav Krishnan.

It’s been a mixed bag of results and a tepid start to the season for Pep Guardiola and Manchester City. Two early defeats against Tottenham and Brighton put the microscope on Guardiola and City and the Catalan boss who once seemed invincible, began to show some weaknesses.

However, after their early season blip City have stabilised the ship to a certain degree. Going into this game City were unbeaten in six games in all competitions despite the media attacks on Guardiola for his tactics in the 1-1 draw against Arsenal.

In that sense, City have recovered from their early season woes when it seemed like their season could be derailed again drawing parallels to last season’s abysmal campaign, by City’s high standards. This game, however, saw Guardiola once again don his pragmatic veil. In this particular game, City took an early lead via Erling Haaland who seems to be the only constant in this City side. But after going a goal up, Guardiola instructed his players to manage the minutes and keep the ball.

To be fair to Guardiola, results were unfavourable in their start to the 2025/26 campaign, so it’s perhaps no surprise that he has turned pessimistic. But in this game, City barely gave Brentford a sniff at . . .