Mah is the answer to the chaos of VAR!
WHO needs competent officials when you’ve got Riyad Mahrez?
Thanks to the delightful left boot of their Algerian wonder, City could laugh off one of the worst VAR decisions of the season to deny them a penalty when the scores were level with the satisfaction of another three points towards the Premier League title.
Pep Guardiola will be mightily relieved to have put a tricky test behind his team that saw one of the weirdest starts they have mustered all season and calmed any nerves that could have crept in.
Sunday’s defeat to United was the first false step made by the team in many a month, an unexpected hesitation from a machine that had ruthlessly crunched through their previous 21 matches.
It left lingering questions about Guardiola’s approach to derby games and how importantly he views them, and raised fresh concerns about the team’s problems in both boxes in the big games ahead of the business end of the season.
But it was also just one game, and few are better than the manager at knowing that leagues are won over 38.
There was a relaxed feel going into the game after the players were ‘on fire’ in the training sessions, while five changes from Sunday both removed some of the poorer performers and also put fresh energy into the XI.
Or so it looked.
Instead, City started poorly with just 25 per cent possession in the opening five minutes as Southampton pressed them high up the pitch with considerable success. They were still up against it when they took the lead against the run of play 10 minutes later.
A glorious lofted ball from Ruben Dias in the centre-circle was exquisitely chested down by the onrushing Aleks Zinchenko in the box before knocking to Phil Foden on his right and while Alex McCarthy saved the initial shot, Kevin de
Bruyne was in position to hammer it in – although it went into the roof of the net.
In a parallel universe, Nathan Ake doesn’t get injured after his star turn on the left of City’s defence on Boxing Day and keeps his place in the team as they step up their winning run. Instead, Zinchenko got in the team at Chelsea and there is nobody in the squad better than making the most of their opportunities than the Ukranian. City, again, regressed though.
Kyle Walker invoked the manager’s wrath for giving the ball away with a thoughtless backheel and from the resulting corner the Bluests conceded a spot-kick for a second successive game when Aymeric Laporte pulled down Jannik Vestergaard and James WardProwse fired the ball straight down the middle of the goal.
It was incredibly soft, but referee Jon Moss gave it and in this world of VAR any
contact is going to be seen. Or so we thought, for shortly after conceding the equaliser, City were on the wrong end of a decision that it is not possible to do justice to quite how bad it was.
A loose touch from McCarthy was pounced upon by Foden in the box and after nicking the ball past the despairing goalkeeper, he was brought down by him.
Foden got up because he is both honest and desperate to have a football at his feet, but it was a penalty in any game in any league in any situation.
Incredibly, Moss didn’t think so. Even more incredibly, Andrew Madley and the VAR team could not see what everyone else with eyes and a brain could – that McCarthy cleaned Foden out.
An official explanation suggested Moss felt the goalie had touched the ball and VAR couldn’t disprove that.
Once you’ve finished laughing at that, consider this more sobering reality: as long as the Premier League or the group of referees do not come out and admit when they have made an error, they can expect zero sympathy for players making the most of any contact in penalty areas.
Officials being proud and trying to be clever are actually making the game worse.
With the scores level, the team not playing well, and the refereeing a bad joke, things looked concerning for City... until up stepped Mahrez.
Starting his sixth league game in a row for the first time in his Blues career, the 30-year-old showed why he has kept the confidence of Guardiola in recent weeks.
Intercepting a loose ball across the back from Southampton, Mahrez curled an unstoppable effort past McCarthy to restore City’s lead.
Then, in first-half stoppage time, he danced his way into the box before teeing up Ilkay Gundogan to give the Blues a two-goal cushion they barely deserved.
And after the break he picked up where he left off, with more magic feet in the box allowing him to slam home a fourth.
If anybody’s head hadn’t fallen off from the Foden non-penalty, they soon would as the two teams exchanged a dizzying combination of goals around the hour mark. Che Adams got one back after more slack defending from City contributed to a ping-pong in their box that left Ederson with no chance, but the Blues went straight up the other end and Foden set up De Bruyne to make it 5-2.
Finally though, the control that the City manager craves finally arrived. The Blues were able to smother their opponents for the final third of the game, restricting them to long-distance efforts while continuing to threaten at the other end.
Ferran Torres, first off the bench, should have scored while fellow substitute Sergio Aguero got a useful 20 minutes where he looked quicker than he did against West Ham.
City will want to forget the chaos of this 90 minutes, including the lunacy of the penalty shout, as quickly as possible, but the contribution of Mahrez will surely not be forgotten when Guardiola considers his teamsheet in the coming weeks.