City look like a team in cruise control
With Sterling supreme, how can Pep’s men fail to hold off Liverpool in the title race? Burnley 0 Man City 2 De Bruyne 5, Gundogan 25
USURPED at the top of the table by Liverpool earlier in the day, Manchester City knew what they had to do by the time they arrived at Turf Moor. They know how it goes. They know this routine. They know how to close out a title. Three years ago, they kept Liverpool at bay by winning their last 14 Premier League games. This season, they may have to do something similar to retain their trophy.
And so, confronted by a home side fighting what looks like a losing battle against the drop, City did not blink. They cannot afford to blink. Not with Liverpool playing the way they are playing. Not with Liverpool breathing down their necks. Not with Liverpool coming to the Etihad next Sunday. This is the endgame now and City are primed for it.
They may only have won 2-0 on a sunny, crisp day amid the mills and the factory chimneys but it should have been plenty more. City did not look like a team under pressure to regain the top spot. They cruised. They played some beautiful, intricate football. They scored two fine team goals. They never once gave the impression that they were anything other than in total control.
Fourteen points ahead of Liverpool on January 15, they have let their rivals back into the race but this was the kind of performance that hinted they are ready for the crunch. Burnley could not cope with Raheem Sterling, in particular. They could not cope with the pace and guile of City’s leading scorer. They could not cope with his touch or his intelligence. Sterling set up both goals — for Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan — and should have scored himself.
Two points behind Jurgen Klopp’s team when their game kicked off, City finished the day one point ahead. They ended the titanic battle with Liverpool in that 201819 season with 98 points and if they win their last eight games, they will finish on 97. That might be what it takes. If they slip up, Liverpool are in the kind of form to capitalise without mercy. ‘We are at a stage of the season where if you lose, you lose the competition,’ Guardiola said afterwards.
City’s season accelerates now. They play Atletico Madrid in their Champions League quarter-final first leg on Tuesday, Liverpool on Sunday in the league, Atletico in the second leg next and then Liverpool again, this time in an FA Cup semi-final, a week on Saturday at Wembley.
Here in Lancashire, they did not give the impression of a team daunted by what lies ahead. They looked like a side who are relishing the challenge.
Liverpool are a brilliant side but so are City. They are like a beautiful machine, smooth and meticulously constructed, all its parts moving in harmony, every player working for his team-mates.
Sterling was the pick of the bunch this time but De Bruyne played like a Rolls-Royce that did not need to go through the gears, Rodri controlled the centre of midfield, Gundogan prodded and probed relentlessly.
Nobody expected Burnley to get anything out of the game but they did not show enough to suggest any optimism about their chances of escaping relegation. They are only four points adrift of Everton but games are starting to run out and they are still lacking the cohesion that has fortified them in the past.
Burnley had actually created the first chance of the match after Aaron Lennon broke down the right. He cut inside and curled a cross to the edge of the area, where Josh Brownhill met it on the run. Ederson was a few yards off his line and he stood rooted to the spot as the ball sailed over his head and wide. Maybe he had it covered. His expression suggested otherwise.
Given the language of the day, we might be entitled to call that a false flag operation. Burnley barely attacked again for the remainder of the half. From then on, it was all City and they took the lead inside five minutes. Burnley did not put enough pressure on the ball and City picked them apart at will.
When the ball was played to Rodri just outside the Burnley box, he drifted a cross out towards the right to Sterling. Guardiola spoke admiringly later about Sterling’s decision-making and now Sterling met the cross first time with a cushioned volley that guided the ball perfectly into the path of De Bruyne and the Belgian smashed it into the roof of the net from six yards out.
Rodri is not a prolific goalscorer but he came close twice in the next 10 minutes. First, his side-footed shot was beaten out by Nick Pope, who dived to his left to push it away. Then, he volleyed wide from the edge of the box when Burnley made a hash of clearing a corner.
City were cruising, though, and they got the second goal they deserved midway through the half. Simplicity was at its heart, as it is with so much of what City do. Sterling played a one-two with De Bruyne on the right and burst forward to cut the ball back from the goal-line. It found Gundogan 10 yards out and he swept it home on the volley.
City should have gone further ahead five minutes before halftime when they cut the home side apart with another give-and-go. This time, Sterling played the ball to Phil Foden and Foden floated a delicious return over the Burnley defence and into the path of Sterling. Pope had raced to the edge of his area and was caught in noman’s-land. Sterling tried to lift the ball over him on the volley but shanked it horribly wide.
City poured on the pressure after the interval. A superb improvised flick by Foden was well saved at point-blank range by Pope but
Gundogan should have done better when De Bruyne played a square pass to him on the edge of the box. Gundogan had time to pick his spot but hit his curling shot straight at Pope, who beat it away.
Sterling and De Bruyne unpicked Burnley again with their one-two routine 20 minutes from the end and Sterling picked out second-half substitute Gabriel Jesus 10 yards out. Jesus stretched for the ball and could not control his volley, which flew just over the bar.
Ten minutes later, City wasted another chance to make it three. Jack Grealish, who still looks shorn of confidence, even in a side as good as this, clipped a cross to the back post where Jesus was waiting unmarked. Jesus hit the ball on the volley with his right foot and when it clattered against the post, it rebounded to him. He tried to curl it past Pope but it went just wide.