Premier League analysis: Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool tactical review after narrow Saturday wins

Man City need a striker to help them create chances

Manchester City have scored 33 goals in 16 Premier League games so far. That's a goals-per-game ratio of 2.06, putting them on course to score 78 goals this season, which would be their lowest total since Manuel Pellegrini's final year at the club.

Too often in football we build narrative by starting from the result and working backwards, and there's no doubt many will assess Manchester City's 1-0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers as the sign of champions; a gritty, hard-earned three points.

But that is not accurate, because if it was not for Raul Jimenez's foolish red card and an astonishingly poor VAR decision to award Man City the match-winning penalty this game would be seen as another worrying sign of City's need for a striker.

It might sound a bit tired, perhaps even a bit too easy, to say a striker would solve a creeping difficulty breaking down a deep-lying defensive blockade like Wolves', but having someone making the right runs and movements in the penalty box would fundamentally alter how City play.

Too often on Saturday they worked the ball cleverly into the half-spaces – exploiting the gaps Wolves left on the outside of their narrow three-man midfield – only to run out of ideas.

Some excellent runs from Raheem Sterling gave Joao Cancelo an option on many occasions, but it wasn't too hard for a very strong Wolves defence to shepherd these situations.

As in the goalless performances against Tottenham Hotspur, Crystal Palace, and Southampton in the Premier League this season, City played too slowly and generally moved the ball in front of the Wolves defence.

It isn't about lacking a player to put chances away. It's about having someone whose movement encourages chance creation in the first place.

To Pep Guardiola’s credit, it was his tactical tweak at half-time that led to Man City's narrow win – even if he did rely on a huge stroke of luck.

Throughout the first half the Wolves midfield had been pulled too far over to City's left, where Jack Grealish threatened, and that meant Cancelo had acres of room on the other side once the hosts switched the play.

Spotting this, the City manager appeared to encourage Bernardo Silva to move high and wide to that flank at the start of the second half, and it was his pressure – dribbling into the space – that kept Wolves pinned back and, eventually, saw Silva's cross from that side 'handled' by Joao Moutinho.

It was very much a fortunate win for Man City in a game that could easily have ended in dropped points for Guardiola’s team. If they play like this through a gruelling winter schedule their winning run won't go on for much longer.

Chelsea fail to control midfield but get lucky

Strangely, the game at Stamford Bridge was also settled by a dodgy penalty call.

Antonio Rudiger went down in stoppage time to give Jorginho the chance to score his second spot kick of the game at a time when Leeds United, who were on top for most of the second half, looked the more likely to find a winner.

Chelsea couldn't control midfield; often Thomas Tuchel's 3-4-2-1 has at least one of the inside forwards dropping to help cram the middle with bodies, but not today – and that defined both halves of the match.

In the first 45 minutes Chelsea had most of the possession and ought to have been able to turn the screw. Leeds' pressing was quite disordered as the midfield and attacking pushed on while the defence dropped, opening a huge space between the lines.

This is where Chelsea's inside forwards should have been, but Kai Havertz consistently stayed too high and Mason Mount moved far out to the right, swapping with Reece James.

The right-back spent long periods of the game essentially playing in central midfield, but with Mount leaving the space it did not help Chelsea overwhelm Leeds, and it meant the glaring gaps in the Leeds formation went unexploited.

In the second half Leeds were first to every loose ball and showed an aggression that unsettled the hosts.

With this new pattern, Chelsea's lack of bodies in the central column of the pitch became a defensive issue; Havertz and Ruben Loftus-Cheek looking too soft under pressure while Mount disappeared for long periods.

Having got the positional detail of his 3-4-2-1 wrong and failing to change things quickly enough, Tuchel really got away with one here. But he wasn't alone. Amazingly, each of the top three won via a penalty, and although Liverpool's at home to Aston Villa was not a controversial decision, Alisson Becker was very fortunate not to be penalised for sweeping Danny Ings' legs in the final minutes at Anfield.

A strange day of Premier League football. Better refereeing and Man City, Chelsea, and Liverpool would all have dropped points.