As usual, we looked better with him coming off. Up until 55 minutes De Bruyne tore through this defense from finding little spaces between Winks and CBs that none of them tracked, and then crossing. That second goal is because De Bruyne finds a lovely position there and Winks is just jogging and marking absolutely no one. But Lucas comes on, Sissoko becomes a full time DM and suddenly he and Ndombele now chase every single City shirt at the same time.
The result: City still create heaps of chances but they’re mostly half chances, the AMs don’t get time to make a perfect ball. De Bruyne not nearly as lethal. Before 57’ they had 2.42 xG as per understat. Then Lucas comes on, Sisssoko DM, they have 0.81 xG next 37 minutes. Still bad, but not nearly as bad.