TITLE PARTY LOOMS LARGE
Guardiola admits City are close to glory after classy win over Foxes underlines superiority
IT IS around this time of the season when the bored, the bitter, the malevolent and the jealous begin to criticise the best side in the Premier League. Remember all that LiVARpool chatter last season when they were about 20 points clear of the rest and hadn’t lost a game. That was funny.
Now it is Manchester City’s turn to be damned by fools. An hour into their game against Leicester City, as Pep Guardiola’s side prepared to move 17 points clear at the top of the table, it appeared to be the fashion to observe how dull ‘possession football’ was and how City’s brand of pass and move was killing the sport. That was funny, too.
They outclassed Leicester, who had won 5-2 the corresponding fixture at City’s ground back in September, and who now need only three wins from their final seven games to clinch a fifth Premier League crown.
Guardiola said: ‘The Premier League is the nicest competition (to win), it is 11 months and it is so tough. We are close. We need three more wins. You have to be patient to attack Leicester because they defend so well. It’s a good victory and it’s another step.’
City scored one of the best goals of the season, a goal that epitomised everything that is good about football and everything that makes the heart sing when Guardiola’s side tear teams apart.
Kevin De Bruyne is often at the heart of these moments and it was the same at the King Power Stadium. There were 16 minutes left and City were already leading 1-0 through a goal from Benjamin Mendy when Riyad Mahrez laid the ball into the path of De Bruyne midway inside the Leicester half.
The Belgian looked up and threaded a ball through the home defence that was a masterpiece of vision and precision. Two Leicester defenders hurled themselves at the pass to try to intercept it but it eluded both of them. Gabriel Jesus ran on to it but instead of shooting, he squared it to Raheem Sterling.
Sterling could have shot, too, but he checked back, sat a Leicester defender down on his backside and passed the ball back to Jesus who passed it into the unguarded net.
And that is why Manchester City will be champions to be celebrated. And I’m sorry, but if you don’t like it, if all you can do is moan and whine about possession football, then you might as well give up and start watching a different sport.
The title race is as good as over now and even if much of the preamble to the game centred around the fact that Sergio Aguero, City’s record goalscorer, will be leaving the club at the end of the season, this game provided more proof that City will not be lost without him.
Aguero started the game but had little influence on it. These days, City are a team that can score from anywhere and anyone.
They play Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday in a Champions League quarter-final first leg and that collision is bound to create more speculation that they will try to sign the prolific Norway forward Erling Haaland in the summer. Maybe they will but they do not need him. This 2-0 victory over one of the best teams in the league was more evidence that they are already a team of all the talents.
Call it possession football if you want but when City hit their stride, as they did in the second half here, it is more like total football. They have now won 15 away games in succession and are edging closer and closer to becoming the first English team to win the quadruple after 118 years of trying in the game. The biggest threat is probably Bayern Munich or PSG in a prospective Champions League
semi-final although Jose Mourinho may be preparing something special for the Carabao Cup final meeting with his Spurs side later this month.
City thought they had taken the lead in the fifth minute when Fernandinho lashed a shot from the edge of the box low into the corner of the net past the outstretched right hand of Kasper Schmeichel.
Schmeichel protested furiously because Aguero, who was offside, had jumped out of the way of the ball and impeded his vision. Referee Anthony Taylor agreed and the goal was ruled out.
City spent the next 15 minutes working the ball patiently and precisely around Leicester’s welldrilled side without being close to finding an opening. When an attempted clearance from Timothy Castagne was charged down on the edge of the box, it fell over the shoulder of Aguero in a long, looping arc. He hit it on the volley first time with his left foot but it flew high over the bar. If it had gone in, it would have made even Aguero’s highlights reel.
Midway through the half, City almost got lucky. They were awarded a free-kick a few yards outside the Leicester box, even though there had been no contact with De Bruyne when he fell after taking a shot. The Belgian took the free-kick himself and the beautifully struck dipping effort cannoned off the face of the bar and bounced away to safety.
City should have taken the lead a few minutes later. Riyad Mahrez slipped a neat pass inside a Leicester defender for Jesus to run on to.
Aguero had forced his way in front of his marker in the six-yard box and would have had a tap-in but Jesus could only slide the ball weakly into the arms of Schmeichel. Aguero put his head in his hands.
City pressed and pressed for the opener. Five minutes before halftime, Mahrez, who has a good record of scoring against his old club, ran on to a sumptuous flick from Jesus and advanced on Schmeichel.
He drilled the ball low but the keeper stuck out his right leg and diverted it away. A minute later, Jesus drifted inside from the left and tried to find the top corner with a rising right-foot drive but it was just too high.
Leicester had not yet mustered a shot on target and had been starved of possession but on the stroke of half-time, they gave City a reminder of the danger they pose. They won the ball in midfield and moved it swiftly to Ayoze Perez. He played in Jamie Vardy and he danced around Ederson before rolling the ball into the net. But the linesman’s flag was up. Vardy had strayed offside.
Youri Tielemans managed the hosts’ first effort on goal three minutes into the second half and, emboldened, they managed another two minutes after. Fernandinho lost the ball in midfield, Kelechi Iheanacho burst forward and fed Tielemans whose fierce drive was deflected wide by a superb diving block from Ruben Dias.
The game was springing into life now.
City threatened again just before the hour and this time they forced the breakthrough their football had deserved.
Schmeichel beat away a drive from Mahrez with his clenched fists but Leicester could not clear the ball and when it found its way to Mendy 12 yards out, he cut inside Marc Albrighton on to his weaker right foot and bent the ball expertly round Schmeichel and into the net.
Aguero was withdrawn two minutes later and replaced by Sterling and the England forward soon played a critical part in wrapping things up for City with his pass for that sublime Jesus strike.
‘The better team won,’ admitted Foxes boss Rodgers. ‘We were disappointed with how we lost both goals, maybe because we look tired from having players out on international duty.
‘But the best team won and they have been the best team all season.’
LEICESTER (3-4-1-2): Schmeichel; Amartey, Evans, Fofana; Albrighton (Pereira 71), Ndidi (Mendy 83), Tielemans, Castagne; Perez; Iheanacho (Maddison 72), Vardy.
Subs (not used): Ward, Praet, Choudhury, Thomas, Daley-Campbell, Suengchitthawon. Booked: Ndidi, Amartey.
MANCHESTER CITY (4-2-3-1): Ederson; Walker, Dias, Laporte, Mendy; Rodri, Fernandinho; Mahrez (Torres 79), De Bruyne (Foden 88), Jesus; Aguero (Sterling 63).
Subs (not used): Silva, Gundogan, Cancelo, Stones,
Ake, Carson. Booked: Ederson, Fernandinho, Rodri. Referee: Anthony Taylor.