THEY’RE NOT KUN YET!
Aguero comes off bench to head an injury-time winner but battling Bristol City still in with chance
IT will take a monumental effort, it will need the game of their lives, but they have a chance.
For being daring, for being unfazed by Manchester City’s majesty, Bristol City have a chance.
For showing more boldness than many more illustrious clubs, they have a chance.
It would be easy to attribute this narrowest of Blues victories to complacency in the Premier League championselect or to a Pep Guardiola selection gamble that failed to pay off. It would be easy and wrong. Just as their triumph over Manchester United was merited, Lee Johnson’s team deserve at least a puncher’s chance in the return leg.
It should be some night in Bristol in a fortnight’s time.
Ahead through Bobby Reid’s first-half penalty, they did not wilt or dull their ambitions, even after Kevin de Bruyne had struck a beautiful equaliser early in the second half. And they certainly did not deserve to see substitute Sergio Aguero head in an added-time winner.
Despite that, Guardiola (right) knows there will be no comfortable passage to a Wembley final.
And, make no mistake, he is desperate to get there, having stressed the need to complement beauty with baubles.
Yet he still felt empowered to put some rest into the legs of Kun Aguero, giving an unfamiliar “false nine” role for Raheem Sterling, who certainly took the false part seriously. His early struggles in this contest were symptomatic of his team’s sluggishness, highlighted by the unusual amount of times possession was cheaply surrendered.
Much of that, though, was down to the feverish work rate of their Championship opponents. For a long while, it was a toss-up which City pressed best.
There have been few teams to show this much ambition against the hosts this season. Yes, the Robins defended in numbers, but broke in numbers at every opportunity.
They sensed the vulnerability of the John Stones-Eliaquim Mangala partnership and took every chance to prey on it.
That paid off handsomely just before the interval when
Mangala donated possession to Josh Brownhill, whose simple, clever pass put Reid in.
Stones gave Anthony Taylor a no-brainer with his age-late challenge on Reid, who was on his feet in an instant to complete matters from the penalty spot.
It gave Johnson’s side a half-time lead that was, despite having a minority of possession, fully merited. Recently, Guardiola’s men have shown a penchant for second-half improvement and so it proved here. Captain for the night, De Bruyne was at the fulcrum of almost every passage of his side’s attacking play.
His range of passing, mainly hit with crisp fierceness, appears to be widening with every game.
For his equaliser, he kept it wonderfully simple, taking delivery from keeper Claudio Bravo, scuttling forward before exchanging passes with Sterling, and finishing with emphatic, right-footed aplomb.
In his technical area, Johnson could only shake his head and smile at the class his men were having to cope with. But not only did they cope, they continued to show adventure on the break – the sort that means the second leg will be far from a formality – and when Aguero nodded in Bernardo Silva’s late cross, it was the cruellest of blows.
It means the odds of the Robins overcoming this superb City team are super-slim.
They will be serious underdogs, they have a mountainous task but they have a chance.
And for this bold performance, they deserve it.