Manchester City far from their brilliant best but are still winning games

A steady but measured start by the champions.

Transcript

00:00And what's the sort of performance has been like? Obviously, you mentioned now that the

00:05fixtures start to kick in. They've not really been at their brilliant best, but they are

00:09still getting wins over the line, as you say, that they are an elite team and they're proving

00:13that every week.

00:14Yeah, it's funny. The performance hasn't been great. I, you know, and they set such high

00:20standards that when they drop away from that, it can be quite noticeable. And I think that

00:27they have that, you know, and it's not a surprise in some ways.

00:30Rodry's been injured. That's huge. Kevin De Bruyne has been injured. Phil Foden has really

00:34not got going this season either. And struggling with like a couple of little niggles and knocks

00:38and just hasn't got back to his full fitness. So they are a bit of a work in progress city

00:43this season. And a lot of performances. I mean, I was at Wolves yesterday. Didn't think

00:47they were great, but they get across the line. Didn't think they were good against Fulham,

00:52but again, get across the line. There's only a handful of performances this season where

00:55you'd say they played really, really well. I think the alarming thing is, you know, that

00:59was the eighth Premier League game of the season. They have conceded the first goal

01:02in four of those matches. They can't keep going with that. They need to stop that record.

01:07They do look susceptible from the counter-attack at the moment. They haven't found a way in

01:11my eyes, without Rodry, of stopping teams breaking quickly. And I also think they are

01:16struggling to break teams down. Wolves was a good example that Wolves just defended and

01:19defended and defended and they couldn't find a way through them. In the end, the two goals

01:23are one from distance and a set piece, and that's been not uncommon this season. So there

01:29are a couple of little minor issues, but look, I feel like at the same time, I have this

01:32conversation every year around the All-in-Winter months. Ah, City aren't playing great. You

01:36know, they're not up to full speed yet and they just keep winning matches and they eventually

01:42come good in the spring months and wrap up the title. So it wouldn't surprise me if that

01:46happens again. And I'm talking about a team that haven't played brilliantly at the moment.

01:49They're unbeaten. They've won six out of eight games. So there's certainly nothing

01:53to be overly concerned about, albeit I don't think they're at their best at this stage

01:58of the season.