The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Sterling service as Guardiola’s men secure first place
MANCITY FEYENOORD 1 0
Raheem Sterling struck a late winner as Manchester City secured top spot in Champions League Group F with a 1-0 win over Feyenoord.
The England international scored his 11th of the season after 88 minutes at the Etihad Stadium to extend City’s club-record winning run to 17 matches in all competitions.
It had otherwise been a rare flat performance from City – by recent standards at least – but Napoli’s convincing victory over Shakhtar Donestsk in the other group game meant they were always in control of their destiny.
Pep Guardiola made seven changes for the match, although he resisted calls to hand starts to highly-rated youngsters Phil Foden and Brahim Diaz, preferring instead to play them off the bench late on.
The game proved a slowburner with City dominating possession in the early stages without creating any clear-cut openings.
The first serious chance of the game fell to Feyenoord after 19 minutes when Steven Berghuis had an effort deflected wide.
City started to look more dangerous after a couple of uncertain moments from Feyenoord’s former Liverpool goalkeeper Brad Jones, who spilled a Kyle Walker cross and almost let in Bernardo Silva with a poor clearance.
Sergio Aguero, captain for the night, picked out the Australian with a drive at goal after Kevin De Bruyne had won possession.
Aguero also appealed unsuccessfully for a penalty after turning Sofyan Amrabat and going down in the area.
City’s goalkeeper Ederson had a bigger scare after losing control on the edge of his area but Jean-Paul Boetius could not capitalise.
Ilkay Gundogan shot over, Aguero headed wide and Sterling had a shot punched away by Jones as City moved up a gear to end the first half and that continued in the second period.
De Bruyne bundled over Berghuis outside the City area – the yellow card he was shown rules him out of the final group game away to Shakhtar – but Sterling had the final word for City as he raced on to a Gundogan pass and clipped the ball over Jones for a late winner.