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Why Mahrez and Sterling are a Wing Duo that do not and will not work for Pep Guardiolas Man City
[A Thread]
![Why Mahrez and Sterling are a Wing Duo that do not and will not work for Pep Guardiolas Man City[A Thread]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ebgou-7XQAIqTXM.jpg "Why Mahrez and Sterling are a Wing Duo that do not and will not work for Pep Guardiolas Man City[A Thread]")
[A Thread]
We all know how deadly these two players are and as individuals are two of the best in the league. But as a wing pair they simply do not allow Man City as a whole to play a fluid style of attack to succeed. In this thread I will explain my reasoning as to why I believe this.
The main threat to our attacks during the phenomenal centurions season was the pace of our wingers getting in behind and creating chances for either the Striker or the opposite winger. And the key to that was Pace, and having a Left footer in LW and a Right footer in RW
Sane and Sterling consistently combined together to finish off team attacks by either creating tap ins for either each other or Aguero and Jesus or finishing it themselves on their strong foot.
If you watch some of these clips they show how we could turn the ball from the middle of the pitch to the back of the net in a matter of seconds thanks to the runs made by our wingers.
This route of football is almost not viable with Mahrez and Sterling playing on the wings these days. The pace of our attacks are much slower than they used to be due to the fact that both wingers are much less direct and almost have to cut onto their stronger foot every time
It was much more difficult to find the clips from this season but as you can see from these two clips are wingers get into great positions to attack the fullbacks and either work a shot or provide a low cross to the other wing
But Instead of doing this, they try to work it onto their stronger foot and lose the ball. Sterling could’ve had a shot on his left but instead he’s trying to get into a position to shoot on his right. And Mahrez could’ve went to the byline and put a cross in but he slows it down
Losing the ball with a pointless cross into the box because he no longer had any options.
While Mahrez is an incredible footballer it’s clear to see why our attacks are not as good as they once were and that is due to our wing play becoming too predictable and lacklustre.
The lack of movement in behind the defence has caused our team to do what we like to call ‘spam crosses into our 5 ft forwards’ we used to have runs made to play perfect low crosses but now we don’t have them runs to have to lump the ball into the box to try and get something
