Pep Guardiola must use Man City wildcard before finding transfer window fix as Spurs loss shows

As Manchester City's game against Tottenham on Saturday wore on, a familiar and slightly worrying trend re-emerged.

City struggled to find ways through the visitor's deep-lying and compact defence, despite the fact they enjoyed 71% possession.

Over the 90 minutes they only created two big chances compared to Spurs' four, largely because Antonio Conte's side blocked the channels and spaces that City like to attack through.

That inability to penetrate the Spurs back-line resulted in Pep Guardiola reverting to plan B - crosses, and lots of them.

Over the past two-and-a-half seasons, City's attacking approach has become more patient and considered and, more often than not, narrower.

That change coincided with the season-long injury and subsequent departure of Leroy Sane, whose role in a double act with Raheem Sterling gave City's attack a direct, high-octane feel.

Without two natural-sided wingers, City have since started to attack through the channels, the number eights - usually two of Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin de Bruyne or Bernardo Silva - making runs into the space between centre-back and full-back.

But when that approach doesn't work, as was the case against Spurs, City run around the outside and pepper the penalty area with crosses.

Guardiola has explained this seemingly unsuitable strategy before. City have not had a tall, traditional striking presence in the box for a while now, but the idea is to win second balls and capitalise.

In fairness, City scored from two of their crosses against Spurs; Gundogan's equaliser came from Hugo Lloris spilling a Sterling cross, while the penalty that Riyad Mahrez ruthlessly dispatched was awarded after Cristian Romero handled Bernardo's drilled ball towards the six-yard box.

But those