Man City's fewest Premier League shots since 2010 and Haaland’s 0.00 xG - why?

The stats make for grim reading and the eye test does not add much in mitigation: Manchester City were uninspiring against Arsenal, registering their fewest shots in a Premier League game since 2010 (four, one on target).

The fact that star striker Erling Haaland had an xG of 0.00 is another eye-catching stat that will travel quickly on social media.

Here is another one: City have lost each of the three games without Rodri, who has now fully served a costly ban for violent conduct against Nottingham Forest.

And here is another: City have lost two Premier League games in a row for the first time since December 2018, which highlights how good they have been for so long, if anything. Those defeats came at a time when Fernandinho was injured, highlighting something else: they looked lost without him at first but learned to thrive when he also missed the end of the campaign; they won the league.

So statistics can sometimes paint a picture different to reality. The reality of City's performance on Sunday does not dramatically differ from the numbers: they were blunt. But it is at least possible to understand why they were so blunt.

The short answer, like those Fernandinho-less defeats in 2018-19, is Rodri's absence. The slightly longer version is Pep Guardiola's interpretation of how to cover for Rodri's absence.

“The fact that we didn't have Rodri, I wanted to put more protection with the ball, players who are really good with the ball, Bernardo (Silva), Kova (Mateo Kovacic) and Rico (Lewis), and have players in the middle who have the ability to turn and attack (Julian Alvarez and Phil Foden) and that was the reason why we were not so wide,” Guardiola explained afterwards.

In short, they aimed for a tight game and a tight game is