Leroy Sané steers Manchester City to win over Watford despite late scare
Even for a team as relentlessly dominant as Manchester City, a sequence of 13 matches in 44 days does throw up the risk of fatigue. Luckily for Pep Guardiola the luxury of rotation comes easily to a squad replete with talent. Like a member of the Magic Circle performing tricks with a subtle sleight of hand, six of the starting selection that cantered past Bournemouth on Saturday moved out of the picture, replaced by a new set at Watford. Now you see Raheem Sterling, Aymeric Laporte and Ilkay Gündogan. Now you don’t. Now you see Vincent Kompany, David Silva and Riyad Mahrez instead. See what he did there?
City being City, half a team’s worth of switches led to no great discernible change in the overall pattern of play, collective confidence and end result.
That was certainly the case for the vast majority of this match. Dominant, controlling, enjoying long stretches of comfortable possession, two smartly worked goals from the purposeful Leroy Sané and Mahrez created a platform for a seemingly inevitable victory. So it was a shock for the story to produce a late twist, to go off at a very unexpected tangent.
Abdoulaye Doucouré bundled in an 85th-minute goal and City ended the match sucked into a pressure situation. Defending set pieces, all hands to the pump, nerves on edge, it was a reminder of how quickly, and how dangerously, control can evaporate.
While not exactly welcoming that reminder, Guardiola did use the moment to press home the message to his players. “We spoke now in the locker room. We have to learn what happened in last 25 minutes. Never you can forget to play,” he said.
“We lost a little bit our control. We suffered. The normal process is to win and improve. In general, I am satisfied. We will talk, we will visualise, if you let opponent play in last few minutes you can face problems.”
Ultimately, though, City returned to Manchester with three more points, and reimposed a five-point lead at the head of the Premier League, reloading the pressure on the chasers. They inflicted a fourth home defeat from their past five games here for Watford, which is a worry for Javi Gracia, but if there is ever a fixture to shrug and accept some punishment, then this is it.
Ben Foster must have suspected he would be in for a busy evening and he began in inspired form. Watford’s keeper showed wolfish persistence to produce a miraculous triple save in the 18th minute. City looked odds on to score when Kompany slipped an inviting pass for Mahrez, whose efforts were quickly followed up by Bernardo Silva and David Silva.
Foiled three times in a matter of seconds, City might have perhaps spent half a second wondering whether it might be one of those almost impossibly rare nights.
Watford found moments to show a flicker of ambition. Roberto Pereyra jinked into position and swept in a shot. On the half-hour, Doucouré flicked the ball over his head and it arced perfectly into Troy Deeney’s path. The crowd gasped. The forward steered his shot straight and Ederson grabbed hold of it.
The moment passed and City began pressing again. Five minutes before half-time, Watford’s resistance was broken in uncommon fashion by Sané. Mahrez spotted the German on the far side and as the ball was floated over he improvised to deal with the height it arrived at in the most efficient manner by sending it past Foster with a jut of cushioned chest control.
City extended their lead just after the break and the goal was symbolic of how they are able to force errors in opponents who look as if they are finding it hard to breathe when the blue shirts start to press.
Watford had a throw in their own defensive third and City simply gobbled it up. David Silva threaded the ball to Gabriel Jesus, whose cross was guided past Foster by Mahrez.
Some of the footwork on display from Sané, David Silva and Mahrez was breathtaking. There was almost sympathy for Jesus, whose low confidence and spurning of chances in front of goal really stood out. But 2-0 it stayed, which gave Watford that glimmer of a late recovery.
City move on to Stamford Bridge on Saturday, a fixture Guardiola describes as complicated, but he is happy to concentrate on matches at a time when Uefa are investigating the club’s business activities in the wake of the Football Leaks allegations. “Uefa is doing what it is doing,” he said. “If they find something the club will make a statement. I trust a lot in our club, our organisation. If something is wrong they are going to tell us.”
He finds it easier to focus on the tricks he is expected to pull off on the pitch. “Of course. It is too easy.”