HAPPY 21st! CITY EXTEND WINNING RUN
MANCHESTER CITY 4 WOLVES 1, REPORT AND REACTION:
AS Strange as it sounds, Manchester City’s huge lead at the top of the Premier League probably doesn’t reflect their dominance. City are 15 points clear now but are actually rather more superior than that.
nobody in england can live with Pep guardiola’s team. Certainly not a side like Wolves, who came for a smash and grab without really knowing how to do it.
this is 21 consecutive wins for City now and 28 games unbeaten. the way they celebrated the three
JESUS AND MAHREZ STEP UP TO EXTEND RUN AFTER WOLVES SCARE
late goals which gave this scoreline a just look indicated that it is a run they wish to extend through Sunday’s Manchester derby and beyond.
Briefly, this threatened to present us with one of the season’s oddest results. City led early but had found the going so utterly straightforward that they had lacked the urgency to end the contest.
So when Wolves equalised with their first touch in the City penalty area — yes, really — in the 62nd minute, a curiosity was suddenly on the cards.
Were we about to witness a game which did not result in a City victory?
they are marvellous to watch when they have had their pride pricked, when they are annoyed. their intensity spikes and with that, goals inevitably follow. that was what happened here. City briefly looked panicked. Wolves even created a couple of chances at 1-1. But the sheer repetitive excellence of City’s football got them where they wanted to go and three late goals restored order.
For the whole of the first half, it was simply too easy for City.
Wolves played with five across the back and relied on the pace of adama traore to get them out and up the field. But it was a plan that fell down on the back of their inability to ever get the ball to him in the first place.
So Wolves were hemmed in and vulnerable and after raheem Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne threatened early, City scored in the 16th minute.
Wolves’ left-sided player was the Spaniard Jonny and he moved up in haste when City’s rodri floated a diagonal ball towards riyad Mahrez.
It was a good pass but Jonny’s misjudgement made it look even better.
On the run, Mahrez controlled the ball well, pushing it in front of him. the cross was then delivered while on the move and Leander Dendoncker turned the ball into his own goal under pressure from Sterling.
For the rest of the first half, City enjoyed themselves. Wolves were not in it but, strangely, the home team did not score again for over an hour.
aymeric Laporte had a goal disallowed for a marginal offside just before half-time and then rui Patricio saved a Bernardo Silva header.
Into the second period we went and Patricio saved from De Bruyne and Mahrez. there had been absolutely no change to the pattern of the game but no more goals, either.
and then Wolves scored, almost as though it was part of some grand, precisely conceived masterplan.
a free-kick awarded 35 yards out was swung in by Joao Moutinho and defender and captain Conor Coady put his head between flying City boots to get Wolves back into the game.
replays showed City defender ruben Dias to have been the defender playing Coady onside. He might also have done better in the challenge.
So Wolves were back on terms with their first effort on target and what was Coady’s first accurate goal attempt in two-and-a-half years as a Premier League player.
given that Coady is a tall,
athletic central defender who has a goal for England to his name, that latter statistic is extraordinary.
For a while, it looked as though it might also feature in this morning’s headlines.
But after Traore wasted a couple of half-chances for a team briefly imbued with belief, City gathered themselves to re-establish control of the game.
it was squeaky for a few minutes. Gabriel Jesus missed twice, and sterling erred at the near post.
But City worked it down the right once again with 11 minutes to go and when Kyle Walker’s low cross was not properly dealt with, Jesus turned sharply to smash the ball into the net.
Wolves were not coming back from that and City punished them for their earlier impudence twice in added time. Mahrez shot accurately from 16 yards for the third before Jesus popped in a rebound when Patricio saved from ilkay Gundogan.
Guardiola looked pleased, really pleased. They enjoy winning at Manchester City.
They are used to it.