Erling Haaland adaptation would be tough at Man City, as Gabriel Jesus' FA Cup struggles prove

As was the case in recent games against Tottenham and Everton, Manchester City struggled to break down a compact defence in their FA Cup fifth round tie at Peterborough United on Tuesday.

Pep Guardiola's side eventually rode out 2-0 winners thanks to second half strikes from Riyad Mahrez and Jack Grealish, but in the first-half in particular, their attacks were slow, predictable and largely ineffective.

Lining up in their usual 4-3-3 formation, City's number eights on the night - Phil Foden and Ilkay Gundogan - moved up to join Grealish, Mahrez and Gabriel Jesus to form a front five when City had possession.

That tactic is nothing unusual - in fact, Guardiola has his team do it pretty much every game. It is usually effective against deep-lying, compact defences, as it increases the chances of creating numerical advantages in key areas in and around the box.

However, there was an obvious difference on Tuesday. Jesus was playing as a traditional striker rather than a false nine, meaning that he did not drop off the front line to link the play and create new angles of attack.

With Foden and Gundogan staying high in the half-spaces between the Brazilian and the wingers - as Guardiola likes his number eights to do - City's front five became very flat.

That meant that the central defenders (Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake) and the midfield three (Rodri and inverted full-backs Joao Cancelo and Oleksandr Zinchenko) had very little to aim at when looking to progress the ball into attack.

This resulted in City creating few clear chances, other than Jesus' spectacular overhead air-shot just before half-time. In the second-half Guardiola sought to remedy this by having Foden drop deep occasionally, and that was how he found the space to