GOAL BLITZ
City and Spurs win but Liverpool blow lead
AS THE goals flew in for the English sides in Europe last night, Gabriel Jesus celebrates scoring City’s third at Feyenoord and Spurs’ Harry Kane revels in his brace against Dortmund... but Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp was involved in a late touchline spat.
Pep Guardiola had declared, ‘I grew up loving the Holland culture, how they play. I was a lucky guy’ on the eve of this encounter. And with high netting to keep out missiles and rabid local expectations, this had looked a serious examination of Manchester City’s quest to finally make it in europe.
Guardiola’s players were the ones who exhibited the Total Football, however, in a performance which revealed precisely what a £215milion summer has delivered to Manchester City.
The club have never opened a Champions League campaign more empathically and not once performed as brutally well away from home in their troubled, six-year quest for Champions League success.
The team selection and tactics of the Dutch champions’ manager Giovanni van Bronckhurst — who selected several rookies — were frankly disastrous and a source of astonishment here last night.
But for movement, speed and attacking options, this still felt like a City change of gear. The level of physicality seemed new.
That two of the goals came from John Stones certainly demonstrated the numbers being thrown into attack.
But it was the midfield axis provided by Kevin De Bruyne which gave the creative spark.k. His speed of thoughtt and pass, piercingg the Dutch defensive lines to initiate wave after wave of attack, made him an untouchable presence.
The hosts were suffocated fon in possession by Guardiola’s player ayer press.
The City manager declared of De Bruyne: ‘He’s one of the best players I’ve seen in my life in terms of making absolutely everything.’ praise, indeed. Much of the added propulsion in this new City side has come from Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy, the full backs who were effectively acting as wingers here and adding an entirely new dimension. Between them they wrought havoc, stealing possession and, once City had seized the ball, operating at fast pace to feed Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus.
Van Bronckhurst’s pre-match platitudes about how City could win this tournament hid a desire to bloody the noses of the mighty.
That feeling is never far from the surface in this port city where they loathe the sophisticated, cultured rivals from Ajax of Amsterdam. The anthem blasting out here in the stadium beforehand translates as ‘hand in hand comrades’.
But from the game’s first breath Guardiola looked to suffocate the spirit of rebellion with his high defensive lines.
‘Good pressing,’ he said of his attacking strategy. ‘We played with three strikers and they could not play. I can imagine this stadium if we’d let them play. We make a lot of passes for 20 to 25 minutes and the crowd was low.’
There was an element of fortune about the goal which sent City ahead after 97 seconds — Stones’ halfconnected header after David Silva’s short corner rollinrolling between Tonny Vilhena’s legs and over the line. But nothing after that lacked conviction in a City side who had arrived with a lamentable record on the road in europe: one win in 10 and one clean sheet in 17 games. Jesus had come close to doubling City’s lead — eric Botteghin heading the Brazilian’s loopedhead from Bernardo’s dinked cross off the line — before Aguero killed the contest inside 10 minutes.
It was a finish of exquisite anticipation and technique. Walker’s low cross from the right was rapid and awkward, bouncing just in front of the Argentine. But he scooped his boot under the ball to rip it past the
goalkeeper Brad Jones, formerly of Middlesbrough and Liverpool.
The pace and rapid exchange of the ball by City reduced the Dutch to a state of sheer panic.
None in their number responded after Mendy thrashed a 20-yard shot through a crowded area. It was parried by Jones to Jesus who tapped in. The defence claimed offside although City’s Nicolas Otamendi, the only offending player, was not interfering with play.
The home side were reduced to a mood of bitter frustration, arguing between themselves and kicking out in a way which saw two of their players booked as the first half wore on.
The most Feyenoord could do was find some self-respect. They were missing their best talent in striker Nicolai Jorgensen but the midfield was pitifully poor, with Vilhena a bystander and utterly out of his depth.
A short corner preceded the fourth goal around the hour, with De Bruyne’s in- swinger finding Stones, whose bullet header added a gloss to the score.
The test, of course, will come against sides with the technical ability to force City back and look for weaknesses.
While praising Stones’ contribution, Guardiola acknowledged ‘he knows the gap he has to improve.’ This competition has been difficult for the defender in the past.
City’s own immediate progress was enhanced by Shakhtar Donetsk’s defeat of Napoli in Kharkiv last night.
The victors are viewed as the weaker of those two sides. It looks as if benign territory could lie ahead. Van Bronckhurst seems to have given up the ghost. Asked if the big clubs should play in a league of their own, he replied: ‘In a way they already are. We won’t be in this competition for much longer.’
When the time comes there will more pressure than ever on City.
For now, Guardiola can reflect on the old Dutch methods.
‘ You grew up with the best moments of your life in the 70s,’ he told a local journalist. ‘Your past is so big, an outstanding past.’
Guardiola is only looking ahead.