How resilient are Manchester City?

07 April 2015 14:01

A remarkable statistic caught our eye as Manchester City slipped to defeat against Crystal Palace.

It’s 20 years since they’ve come from behind at half-time to win an away game.

It seems to suggest a worrying lack of resilience and fortitude from a team who aspire to be one of the best in Europe.

But is it really all that bad? How often do teams come from behind at half-time to win games in the Premier League?

We trawled back through the numbers from the last five seasons – the time in which City have been one of the major players – and compared their efforts to the four other biggest teams of the period: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United.

And indeed, it doesn’t make happy reading for City fans. They are the only team without a win in that period.

Graphic showing away wins from losing positions at half-time

It should be mentioned that City are behind at half-time less frequently than their rivals too.

Liverpool, for example, have been chasing the game at the break nearly twice as often.

Graphic showing how many times teams have been behind at half-time

But when it comes to taking points from losing positions in away games, there’s no way of sugar-coating it: City are pretty rubbish.

They’ve managed just four points, from four draws, over the last five seasons – the worst of the big five. Liverpool have eight, Arsenal 11, Chelsea 13, and United an impressive 18.

Graphic showing percentage of points won after being behind at half-time

Even taking into account the relatively rare event of City being behind at half-time, this still makes them the least resilient of the big five away from home.

Indeed, they haven’t claimed an away point from a losing position at the break since August 2012, when they drew with Liverpool.

Since then, they’ve failed to come back on seven occasions, most recently – and perhaps most tellingly – in last night’s defeat against Palace.

Source: SNAPPA