Man City vs Coventry: leaders against a side on nothing

Manchester City lead the Premier League on goal difference with six points from two matches. Coventry City are seventeenth with none, and are one of two clubs in the division yet to score. They meet at the Etihad on Saturday afternoon, four days after City closed a transfer window in which they spent £440m.

The obvious framing is a mismatch, and it probably is one. The less obvious detail is that Coventry have had more of the ball than their opponents in one of their two defeats, and it did them no good whatsoever.

City took a while to get going and then did not stop

The opening weekend was harder work than the result suggests. City trailed Bournemouth at home from the twenty-sixth minute and needed goals in the eighty-fourth and the ninety-first to win 2-1.

Last Friday at Selhurst Park was the version everyone expected. City had 72.2% of the ball, eighteen shots and nine on target, and won 4-1. Erling Haaland headed the first on seventeen minutes from an Antoine Semenyo cross. Rayan Cherki scored twice in five minutes — a left-footed finish from the centre of the box on fifty-four, assisted by Phil Foden, and a right-footed strike from outside the area on fifty-nine, assisted by Joško Gvardiol. Haaland added the fourth on eighty-four, again from a Foden pass.

Palace’s consolation was an own goal by Gianluigi Donnarumma. City have therefore conceded two goals this season and one of them was scored by their own goalkeeper.

Coventry have had the ball and no idea what to do with it

Coventry lost 3-0 at Arsenal on the opening weekend, which is no disgrace. Last weekend they lost 1-0 at home to Hull City, and that one will bother them considerably more.

They had 68.7% of the possession. They took eleven shots to Hull’s six. They put three on target to Hull’s two. And they lost, to a Liam Millar strike from outside the box on eighty-two minutes.

So a promoted side dominated another promoted side at home and lost 1-0, and the two clubs now sit third and seventeenth. Hull have six points; Coventry have none and have not scored. That is a fourteen-place gap generated in a fortnight between two teams who came up together.

What Saturday probably looks like

Coventry will not have 68.7% of the ball at the Etihad. They will have something closer to what Palace had — under thirty per cent — and the match will be decided by how long they can keep the score at nothing.

There is a reasonable case that this is a better fixture for them than last weekend was. Coventry’s problem so far has not been defending; it has been converting territory into shots that trouble a goalkeeper. Against City they will not have territory to convert, and the game becomes a straightforward defensive exercise, which is a simpler task even if it is a harder one.

The counter-argument is Haaland and Cherki, who between them scored all four at Selhurst Park, and a City side that has now scored six goals in two matches with two of them arriving after the eighty-fourth minute. Coventry holding out for eighty minutes would not, on the evidence, be enough.

Coventry have not scored, and that is the number that matters

Two matches, no goals. Coventry are one of two clubs in the division yet to score, the other being Tottenham, and the two of them are the only sides in the Premier League without a goal after two rounds.

The mitigation is that they have faced Arsenal, who have not conceded all season, and lost at home to a Hull side that has not conceded either. Coventry’s opening fixtures have been against the two meanest defences in the division, which is desperately bad luck for a promoted club trying to settle.

The problem is that the third one is Manchester City, and the mitigation runs out at some point.

The money, and what it has and has not bought

City finished the window having spent £440m gross and recouped £315m, with Enzo Fernández arriving from Chelsea for £125m. It is the largest single-window outlay a Premier League club has made.

It is worth setting that against the table rather than assuming it settles anything. Two matches in, City lead on goal difference from Arsenal, Hull City and Chelsea — all on six points. One of those three is a promoted club that has spent nothing comparable and beat Manchester United along the way.

Over thirty-eight matches the money tells. Over three weekends it tells you almost nothing, which is why the interesting question about Saturday is not whether City win but whether Coventry can find the first goal of their season while doing it.

The Premier League simulator on this site runs the rest of the campaign from the real table and the real fixture list, if you want to see how long a start like Coventry’s usually takes to shake off.