Aguero double fires City through bruising battle
When he arrived in England, this was the game Pep Guardiola identified as one to relish. Burnley was a place he had never been, in his imagination cold, uncompromising, muscular. He looked forward to pitting his wits there, to demonstrating that good football could win out whatever the setting.
And how he will have enjoyed his first visit. True, his win came through two scrambled goals, hardly plucked from the Barcelona playbook (“beautiful, beautiful” was how he described them, with a smile). But the three points accrued through a bruising encounter put his Manchester City – albeit temporarily – alone at the top of the table. No wonder he was bouncing at the final whistle.
“It is very, very rewarding that we have been to Stoke and to here and won,” he said.
His pleasure was enhanced because of how difficult the home side made it. “Awkward” was the word Burnley manager Sean Dyche used to describe his game plan. Bouncing back from miserable defeat at West Bromwich, his team were restored to peak Burnley: high balls, stout, straightforward challenges, this was all new to Guardiola. And he seemed enthused. “What they do they do really, really well,” he said of Burnley. “I’m impressed.”
Mind, the way his players began they clearly did not share the boss’s keenness for Lancastrian away days. City began as if still hung-over from their midweek European exertions, their sleepy start epitomised by Yaya Touré. His first contribution was a comical tumble and a shot ballooning into the stand. His next was to gift possession to Michael Keane. Then when Raheem Sterling, breaking at pace, found him with a neat pass, he overran the ball.
His discomfort was shared by his colleagues. They were not enjoying the robust challenges of Keane, Matthew Lowton and Ben Mee, all sliding in hard and firm. And they were really not enjoying Sam Vokes’s aerial threat. Sens- ing unease, Burnley were straight at them. They had a big shout for a penalty after only five minutes, when Jeff Hendrick, collecting the ball on his chest, was pushed over by Nicolás Otamendi. But then every shout is big when issued by Dyche.
“How it’s not a penalty I don’t know,” the Burnley manager said. “I was a centre-half, I know what you can get away with. He’s tried to challenge through the back of him.”
But then the way they began, Burnley needed no help from the referee. All they needed to do was to keep firing the ball high and long. Which is what their goalkeeper, Paul Robinson, did after 14 minutes. Making his first appearance in the Premier League since May 7, 2012, he marked his return with a ’keeping rarity: a goal assist.
Taking a free-kick from outside his area, he floated the ball towards Vokes. Otamendi cleared but the ball landed at the feet of Dean Marney, who bent a superb long-range shot past Claudio Bravo into the corner of the City net. It was his first Premier League goal since 2009. And it was indicative that the player charged with closing him down was Touré. Who didn’t.
Perhaps embarrassed out of his torpor, the Ivorian was at the heart of the City fightback. He fired a lovely ball to Sterling, charging in from the wing. The England man’s cutback appeared to have set up Nolito. Lowton, however, piled in to clear. It was now City’s turn to shout for a penalty. But all Andre Marriner gave them was a corner.
It was sufficient recompense. After a horrible scramble, in which Burnley had several chances to clear, Sergio Agüero stabbed home. Agüero then almost immediately got another, arcing a shot from the edge of the area. Robinson defied rust to dive to his right and push the ball round the post. “That save was top drawer,” said Dyche of his 37-yearold stand-in. “Age goes out the window with a save like that.”
But whatever Robinson’s vigilance, as the second half got under way, it appeared City had removed the sleep from their eyes. And once they assumed control, there was only one way this match was going. Game but limited, Burnley’s players could not keep up with the gathering pace of City’s interplay. Sterling was enjoying acres of space on the wings but his crosses never seemed to evade the first man.
It did not matter. City were in the ascendant now. And if their first goal was a comedy of errors, their second appeared to have been choreographed by the Keystone Cops. Touré stole into the area, but fell under a challenge from Keane. The centre-back appeared to have snuffed out the danger. But, in the attempt to clear, Mee and Stephen Ward collided and the ball fell to Fernandinho. He scooted to the byline, and pulled a cross back to Agüero, who finished with his shin.
Burnley tried to fight back. Keane almost nodded home, Hendrick headed over from a corner and Bravo was obliged to make a diving save from substitute Ashley Barnes’s acrobatic overhead kick.
It was not enough. Once they had woken up, City were worthy winners. And how Guardiola loved it.