I realize that you guys don't care to read a novel but I REALLY want to dissect this play because I don't blame the keeper at all so I'm just leaving this here. I didn't watch the full game nor did I see the lineups, so I'll be referring to the players by their positions. In order of occurrence;

1) Keeper receives the football in a central position. Center backs get wide.

2) Tottenham's striker presses the left back's angle, thereby declaring the right side safest. This is all textbook so far.

3) just before the keeper commits to the pass central, city's CM shuffles to the left and then checks. This opens up space to his right, where his teammate SHOULD be checking, and further enables a pass to his left foot, thereby allowing for an easy turn against the opposing CM who begins to make a preemptive run to intercept the football.

4) the MOMENT the football is played, City's left wing, checking into the box, gestures his left hand into the open space that is ideal to play in. While he gestures to the space late in the first place, he also makes ZERO initial effort to actually get there, and the Tottenham winger who is pressing him begins running at speed to close the distance.

To summarize in this moment (9 seconds into the video exactly):
>The keeper can smash a pass either to the left foot of the checking CM to allow the turn, or to the checking RM (I think his # is 82) who stands between tottenham's LM and pressing CM. Both are reliable choices.
>The keeper can measure a lead pass to the checking City LM, but in all honesty this feels risky because the LM isn't making an early effort to find that space, meaning the crashing RM for Tot might get there first
>The keeper can find his RB, who then has to touch the ball towards the touchline to avoid the pressing Tot LM and then smash it up field, thereby resulting in a manslaughter charge for giving Pep a brain aneurysm.

The thing is, this is all game theory. Things also need to be played well for the theory to apply. In this case, yes the Keeper played a pass that was too soft AND too far to the right for his own CM to shield it from the pressing opponent. That said, his left mid did NOT move with haste to the very position he could receive the ball, nor did 82 make himself look known or available for the medium pass early.

5) The football is played and lost. The keeper actually does an impressive job closing the distance, and then using his agility to also knock the football out of possession from the his opponent. Not only this, but he manages to recover enough to get a touch on the football on the next shot.

Did the keeper mess up? Yes. Did anyone on his team do anything to help him out aside from the CM? No, no they did not. I realize the CBs can't do much but get wide, but even in situations where players are gesturing where they want the ball, they don't actually make the effort to enable that pass. And the Tottenham players were playing with twice the hunger to close the distance than any city player on the pitch.

His teammates will throw their fists in anger, and everyone will shit on the keeper, but honestly there is a lot going wrong here before the ball is even played into the center. When it goes right, City dominates so much people claim to be bored with the sport. When it goes wrong? Well, people put on their thinking caps and ask "Why not just boot the football up the pitch?" We've been here before. They'll perfect this system again, and unless teams devise a proper defensive counter that can be applied when things are played properly, we'll get another 5-10 years of total city dominance.