Sergio shows his worth to clinical City
UP IN the press room at The Hawthorns, Pep Guardiola sat down behind a desk and gazed out on to the floodlit pitch and the goalmouth to his left where Sergio Aguero had scored two sumptuous goals an hour or so earlier to bust Manchester City out of their slump.
Guardiola’s doubters had stood down for a while. City had been back to their beautiful best in the crushing 4-0 win over struggling West Brom that had re-established their position at the top of the Premier League after Arsenal’s win at Sunderland earlier in the day.
Ilkay Gundogan had scored twice, too, in City’s first victory in seven games. Guardiola purred about him as well and admitted it was a relief to have ended his worst ever run as a manager. At the end of it all, though, it was Aguero’s brilliance that had caught the eye.
Guardiola listened to a question about Aguero. He must have known it was coming. ‘Does that mean he will start against Barcelona on Tuesday?’ the City manager was asked. Guardiola smiled. ‘I think so,’ he said, pausing for effect. ‘But I’m not going to tell you which position.’
Guardiola had taken plenty of criticism for his decision to leave the Argentine forward out of City’s starting line-up for the Champions League game against his former side at the Nou Camp 10 days ago that City lost 4-0.
Some had started to say that Guardiola had a problem with big-name strikers and that this was just the start of a process of easing Aguero towards the exit. It seemed a slightly fanciful theory, particularly in light of the fact that City are not blessed with a lot of strikers and last night, Guardiola was effusive in his praise for his match-winner.
‘Aguero is a special player,’ Guardiola said. ‘We need him. We need him a lot. He is part of the history of this club.
‘Still, he can write the most brilliant images for himself in this club. He is one of the best. I am going to help him to be much, much better. That is my target. So that every game, he feels how important he is. I’m so, so happy for him because with all of that, he is one of the nicest people I have met.’
City had turned on the style on a damp day and after he had watched his team demolish Tony Pulis’ side, Guardiola made a point of walking on to the pitch with his players to thank the massed ranks of City fans gathered behind the goal who had chanted his name throughout the match.
City will not have long to savour their return to form given Barcelona’s imminent visit. They will represent rather a different test to a West Brom side that has now won only once in 10 matches. Nevertheless, Guardiola asked that he should at least be allowed to enjoy the victory on the coach journey back to Manchester. He and his team deserved that much.
‘City are back,’ their fans sang as halftime approached and this felt like a return to the early days of the season when they won their first 10 games under Guardiola. Winning the title will not be easy. They will not run away with it. But the way they won at The Hawthorns showed why they deserve to be favourites.
City had opened the scoring after 19 minutes when Gundogan, who had one of his best games for Guardiola, played a one-two with Fernando down the right. Gundogan spotted Aguero’s run and slipped a pass inside Jonas Olsson for him.
Aguero struck it with beautiful crispness and past Ben Foster.
Just before the half-hour, Olsson tackled Nolito cleanly on the edge of the West Brom box but when the ball bounced off Darren Fletcher, it fell to Aguero. He took one touch and used another to step outside Olsson before lashing a rising drive past Foster and into the roof of the net.
Eleven minutes from the end, City put the game out of reach. This time, Aguero was the provider. He got the ball on the edge of the box, ignored the overlapping run of Fernandinho and drifted inside.
As West Brom’s defenders tried to crowd him out, Aguero chipped a neat pass into the heart of the area. Gundogan was the beneficiary. He controlled the ball and slipped it through Foster’s legs.
A minute from time, Gundogan completed a fine individual performance by taking a ball from Kevin De Bruyne in his stride and sweeping it past Foster for his second and City’s fourth.
Crisis over.