Their squad depth is not as good as before - especially in defence. Savinho is not very good as a winger - while City also lack balance in midfield without a good defensive midfielder. Pep Guardiola can't force De Bruyne to perform like he used to - Foden isn't at his best either. Haaland was less than optimal due to a lack of creativity on the wings and midfield - so everything changed compared to the previous season.
In addition to the decline in performance, Pep's strategy can actually be read perfectly by Arni Slot. He understands very well how Pep implements the strategy, especially on 1st half. As we can see how the 1st goal created, Mohammed Salah was unguarded at the moment, even Salah is a top scorer but he is not separated from the defender's observation. It's the same on 2nd goal, the city defender repeats the same thing, Salah, and Szoboszlai still missed their surveillance, and create a nice collaboration on front for 2nd goal. That strange strategy Arni implemented 4-2-2-2, this making mess The city player when Luiz Diaz, and Jones looming them on the other side.
Mohamed Salah's first goal was just a brilliant corner kick that has been practiced to perfection and rightly implemented in the most perfect way possible. one thing about salah is that when he gets comfortable in a game, he plays and plays really well as though he is playing against a team that is in a relegation zone. slot is really getting things right for the team what a joy it will be for this positive run to continue to the end of the season. apart from losing points in the two simple games they draw, they would have been at a remarkable distance far ahead of any other team that is behind them and pressing in this pace to the end of the season would have made them winner of the league with the highest margin ever. that is still not out of the box as other teams are yet to get things right but rather struggling to secure some few points.