Gary Neville on Manchester City’s new challenge as others take note of Wolves’ draw with Premier League champions

Fresh from watching Manchester City drop their first points of the season against newly promoted Wolves, Gary Neville said other teams will follow Wolves’ lead in their approach against the champions on the Gary Neville podcast…

After that result, Pep Guardiola knows that his team have been challenged. We’ve seen many different systems, many different types of approach, and I’ve been waiting for a different type of play.

Liverpool caused problems for them last season, as did Man United, but I’m talking about the clubs around mid-table and towards the bottom; a lot of them have rolled over, have been so deep and not had a positive threat.
Wolves from the very beginning of the game to the very end were fantastic, and still you could argue City may have deserved to win on chances, but because of the approach, shape and idea Nuno Santos had about how to set up I think they got what they deserved.

The narrow positions of the two wide players in the 5-4-1, and how they didn’t always go back, meant they were always able to counter-attack, winning the ball in good positions, not necessarily 20 times during the games but three or four each half. It’s the most City have been exposed since the Liverpool away game in January.
Well done to Wolves, and to the other clubs looking at that, the clubs at the bottom should think about not losing three, four or 5-0 like Huddersfield where it drains confidence. Try to think about winning the game, and that’s what Nuno did with Wolves.

Last season, it felt like to me there was a lot of work done about how to stop City, but not about how to damage them. But from the first minute today Wolves took up a mid-press, and it was high up a few times, they got at Vincent Kompany, got him booked, Fernandinho could’ve been booked and they had the position of Jota and Helder Costa in wide positions – they did really well, and Adama Traore did well when he came on too.

Wolves need to get the points, there’s always the idea that performances don’t always lead to results, but when you’ve got a threat like Wolves have, and a good compact shape, I’d be surprised to see them near the bottom.

There’ll be some transition, some pain and we’ve seen that already, but the fact the manager has kept the same team in the three games is a good thing, and today they’ve competed against the best team in the Premier League and shown they can handle it.
When you come into the Premier League you’ve got players stepping up a level and players coming in from outside, who haven’t played at that level before. It’s just about removing some of those doubts of ‘can we do it?’ Today will have gone some way to doing that.

They looked well-drilled, they looked well-coached, they had an idea about how to approach the game in attack and defence, it was a really good performance from start to finish. Man City are the most difficult team to play against in this league, 99 per cent of the teams they play don’t lay a glove on them, let alone create chances.

Wolves created big moments of concern, and Kompany and Aymeric Laporte will know they’ve been in a game. It forced a slight adaptation of the system from Pep Guardiola, pulling Kyle Walker inside.

It’s far too early to read into it, but if you’re a team playing against Man City in the next few weeks you would look at this game a lot. What Wolves have been is good in attack and defence, and obviously that’s key to every single game but intent and approach is everything.

Far too many teams have just lived for a set piece or for one counter-attack, rather than try to do something every time Man City are on the ball. Wolves will have set something up in terms of the shape, the 5-4-1 caused problems, and teams might look at that.

At United, we found teams who caused us difficulties, and other teams would then copy that in the coming weeks. That’s what City will face – other teams will change their shape to face them.

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