3️⃣ points as injury-ravaged Norwich stun Manchester City | OneFootball

In the battle of the champions at Carrow Road, it was last season’s Championship winners Norwich City who shocked Premier League victors Manchester City.

Despite few giving them a chance coming into this one, the Canaries claimed a win that nobody could say they didn’t deserve.

We look at what we learned …

Where did that come from?

International break rust? Foolishly resting Kevin De Bruyne? Norwich rallying around their massive underdog status?

Take your pick for the reasons behind why City found themselves stunned at Carrow Road on Saturday evening.

But whatever fingers you can point at the champions for their defensive frailties and benching of their brilliant Belgian, you firstly need to credit Norwich, who were outstanding to a man.

This was a Canaries side who had on their bench two goalkeepers and a youngster who had never been in a Premier League matchday squad, such is the severity of their injury crisis.

Eight Canaries players were ruled out by injury and some of them being key to the cause too but the likes of Sam Byram came in and performed outstandingly in the circumstances.

The fact that a side pieced together with whatever Daniel Farke had available to him pulled this off is deserving of more praise than the Citizens should receive criticism.

The patchwork Canaries were immense in every area of the field and fully deserved this victory.

We need to talk about Kevin

You have a player in red hot form chasing down multiple Premier League records.

So naturally you decide to bench him, with an eye on an upcoming Champions League trip to Ukraine.

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but we’re still scratching our heads at the decision to drop De Bruyne for this one.

He has registered an assist in each game so far for City this season and provided three in one game along with a goal on top of it on international duty last Monday.

Perhaps Pep was conscious of putting too much on a player who recently suffered injury issues but there appears to be no lingering after-effects of that.

It was an odd decision to consciously weaken your own team’s creativity and it cost his side dearly.

By the time he was introduced on 57 minutes, the damage was already done.

Miss Aymeric-a

It has only been one game but there is already a large hole in the City defence in the shape of Aymeric Laporte.

He was lost to injury in the final game before the international break and the evidence here suggests teams will fancy themselves to press City in the Frenchman’s absence.

That central defence lacks the same kind of fear factor without him and perhaps to a lesser extent Vincent Kompany.

Norwich’s third goal was an embarrassment, the kind of goal a schoolboy side shouldn’t concede, let alone the Premier League champions.

Nicolás Otamendi wanted a LaLiga return during the summer and there aren’t many City fans who would have been unhappy to see the back of him.

He was poor throughout but the sloppiness for Teemu Pukki’s goal was truly shambolic. Pep’s got problems there.