STERLING HITS NEW HEIGHTS
38 seconds... and Raheem answers the call
RAHEEM STERLING struck the fastest goal of the Premier League season as Manchester City returned to winning ways against Watford. Sterling opened City’s account after 38 seconds before Christian Kabasele’s own goal made it 2-0 to the hosts. Sergio Aguero added a third on the hour with Andre Gray replying. The win extended City’s unbeaten League run to 22 games to take them 15 points clear of Manchester United. Meanwhile, Fernando Llorente hailed a ‘really important’ win as Tottenham beat Swansea 2-0 at the Liberty Stadium. Former Swans striker Llorente gave Spurs the lead after 12 minutes when he glanced home Christian Eriksen’s free-kick at the near post. It was the Spain forward’s first goal for Tottenham in his first start for the club.
NO doubt you can guess what happened from the scoreline. So here’s an old Ronnie Corbett joke. A bloke goes to his local golf club to find a stranger looking for a game. The two men agree to play and, on the first tee, the stranger takes out a hockey stick. He addresses the ball and hits it 250 yards down the middle. From there, he removes a short length of lead piping, and chips on. He putts out with a snooker cue, for birdie.
This continues all the way round. Pieces of drainpipe, scrap wood, odd bits of metal. At the turn, he’s three under par. Finally, the club member can stand no more. ‘I can’t help noticing,’ he says. ‘The unusual set of clubs you’ve got there. What’s that about?”
‘It’s my curse, you see,’ the stranger says. ‘I’m so naturally gifted at everything that I have to make it more challenging or I get bored. If I play tennis, I use a cricket bat. If I play cricket I use a wooden spoon.’
The member thinks about this for a moment. ‘Can I ask you a question?’ he says.
‘Yes, everyone does,’ the stranger replies. ‘And the answer is standing up in a hammock.’
And that’s what City are making the league look like this season. Pretty soon, they’ll have to do it standing up in a hammock just to stay focused.
A goal up in 38 seconds, three clear soon after the hour, they brushed Watford aside with an ease that made a mockery of this talk of blips after two dropped points at Crystal Palace.
Sergio Aguero alone could have had a hat-trick in less than 20 minutes, but had to settle instead for just one, City’s third — the goal that confirmed there would be no Watford revival that affected the outcome.
Andre Gray pulled one back from a cross by Andre Carillo on 82 minutes but by then it was too late. City had been in control from the first attack, easing back to a 15point lead at the top, taking their tally of goals scored against Watford in the league this season to nine.
Sloppy defending, including an own goal, helped and Heurelho Gomes finally cracked under the pressure of City’s relentless attacks. He tamely pushed out a cross from Kevin de Bruyne in the 63rd minute to allow Aguero the simplest tap-in, having missed two equally straightforward chances earlier.
He should have scored with a close-range shot before half time, then missed a free header from the first attack of the second half. He hit the bar in the 73rd minute, too. Not that it mattered.
City will have to raise their game when they next play in the league against Liverpool at Anfield, but always had too much for Watford.
Thirty eight seconds. That was the time elapsed when Manchester City shook off any remaining negativity from the dropped points at Crystal Palace and got back to business as usual.
Watford are a long way from the team that could have gone top of the league had they beaten City at Vicarage Road on September 16, but even so. It was pretty damn quick — a real statement of intent for those who wondered whether City would be troubled by teams setting up to thwart and frustrate them.
Watford never looked capable of that. A goal down within a minute, two behind after 13, if they mounted the odd decent counterattack it was mainly because City were strolling, conserving energy to combat football’s holiday fatigue.
Pep Guardiola said the festive period was disastrous for players and, irrefutably, it is. Going 2-0 up so early, however, was as near to a tonic as it gets.
As was having De Bruyne available when he could easily have been kicked out of a month or more by Crystal Palace’s Jason Puncheon on New Years’ Eve.
Having disappeared on a stretcher then, he made a surprising recovery to start. With John Stones and David Silva back after injury absences, far from being depleted, City were stronger than they have been for a while.
Strong and stable, for the most part, too.
It took Watford a good 20 minutes to gain composure against City’s forwards and by then the game was as good as won. The opener, from the first attack, was effortless — Silva playing a delightful ball inside the full back, a neat cross from Leroy Sane on the left, Raheem Sterling left alone at the far post to convert into a net that was close to unguarded, goalkeeper Gomes drawn to the front.
It was Sterling’s 14th goal in the Premier League this season and quite why Watford saw no danger in Manchester City’s leading scorer is a mystery.
Much like the empty seats in the exclusive Tunnel Club, the most expensive seat in the house, with
many of the patrons unable to drag themselves away from the hospitality in time for kick-off.
They should know better with this City team. Anything could happen and it could happen fast.
Indeed, by the time City went two up, they could have led by four. Sane versus Daryl Janmaat was shaping up as one of the mismatches of the season, every involvement a goalscoring opportunity.
After five minutes he cut one back to Stones who, despite his status as a defender first, should have scored instead of sending his close-range shot high into the night sky.
Soon after, a Sane cross flew through the six yard box, ripe for the merest touch to send it goalwards, but none came.
Finally, Watford caved. Silva was again the architect, slipping the ball in to De Bruyne on the right, the Belgian sending a dangerous pass into the six-yard box, trapping Christian Kabasele into a panicked attempted clearance, diverted past Gomes.
It went down as De Bruyne’s assist, his tenth of the season, the first to reach that number in Europe’s top five leagues.
On it continued. De Bruyne hit the bar with a free kick after 18 minutes, while a Sterling cross found Aguero just before half time — his shot surprisingly weak and saved by Gomes.
It was as if Aguero was going through the motions, so comfortable were the home team, and he wasn’t the only one.
Small lapses of defensive concentration allowed Watford to mount the odd counter-attack, with Gray through twice but on each occasion denied by the impressively sharp Ederson.
When Gray did score it ended a 29-year drought since Watford had last scored a league goal against City away and it is certainly not getting any easier.