STERLING’S A SAVIOUR
Pep goes pop. . .City boss rages at Redmond over Saints tactics
IT’s not even December and already we have what feels like the first decisive moment of the Premier League season. Raheem sterling has already surpassed expectations this campaign but this was truly something else.
There was hardly a second left on the clock in added time. southampton had come from behind to hold Manchester City at 1-1 and it seemed as though the home team’s lead at the top of the table was about to shrink from eight points to six.
With a game at second-place Manchester United to come a week on sunday, there was a possibility of a significant change in the wind.
City had not played very well in winning at Huddersfield at the weekend and they had not played very well here.
But when Pep Guardiola’s team launched their final attack five minutes into added time, the ball was funnelled patiently and purposefully to sterling on the edge of the penalty area.
sterling has been on a run recently, one of those streaks that makes a footballer feel as though he could turn water into wine.
This time, though, the space seemed too tight and there seemed to be too many bodies between the City forward and the goal for him to repeat recent late winners against Feyenoord and Huddersfield. Once again, though, he did it. The right-foot shot he curled from 18 yards had to be perfect. southampton’s goalkeeper Fraser Forster is a huge man but this was indeed perfect — inch perfect — grazing the post as it beat the goalkeeper to his left.
As the ball nestled in the net, all hell broke loose at the Etihad stadium.
This didn’t feel merely like a late November winner against southampton, it felt much bigger than that. It felt vital and it felt extraordinary.
so as sterling raced the length of the field in exultation, he was pursued by team-mates and substitutes, even injured ones. Briefly Guardiola joined the melee. Rather like Roberto Mancini after sergio Aguero’s title-winner here in 2012, Guardiola didn’t really know what to do.
Later, after the full-time whistle, the spaniard argued and jostled with southampton’s Nathan Redmond as the two men left the field. That, in truth, looked a little unnecessary and we may not have heard the last of it.
But for now we will concentrate on the sheer glory of the football.
City had not been anywhere near their best once again but in a way that only magnifies what they ultimately managed to do. It is one thing celebrating the big victories, the ones that are inevitable almost as soon as the game kicks off, quite another to celebrate those that are clutched from the jaws of disappointment.
Victories like this only add to the sense of confidence and invincibility that builds when a team are on a run like City’s. If you can win even when you are ordinary then what is there to fear?
Equally, nights like this can sap the belief from your opponents in the bigger picture. We have United to thank for giving us a title race at all. Without Jose Mourinho’s team this one would be over already.
But what will United make of this? Twice in four days, City looked set to slip up. Twice they have slammed the door in the face of United’s optimism and passages of games like this form part of the psychological narrative of a long season.
so at the end of it all, we are as we were. One day this will just look like another late goal by a very good team. In reality it was the conclusion of a game that seemed to have slipped from City’s grasp largely on the back of their own carelessness.
City had fallen below their usual high standards in winning at Huddersfield on sunday, with victory the result of persistence as much as inspiration. For long periods in the first half here, that pattern continued and the best opportunities fell to southampton from a pair of corners. Wesley Hoedt headed against the bar and Maya Yoshida volleyed over, both from six yards.
Guardiola’s team also had opportunities and when Kevin De Bruyne scored from a free-kick via a flick off the toe of southampton defender Virgil van Dijk early in the second half, it looked as though they would ease away. But Forster saved well from Gabriel Jesus and from De Bruyne while Aguero headed over.
At this point, southampton had disappeared as an attacking force and Aguero could have finished things in the 62nd minute but headed another De Bruyne freekick over the bar.
Another goal then and we would have been spared all the drama.
But City’s wastefulness allowed southampton substitute sofiane Boufal to embarrass Fabian Delph at the byline to set up Oriol Romeu beautifully and he equalised from 15 yards with a quarter of an hour left.
A draw would not exactly have been a disaster for City but at United they would have smelled opportunity. Now they will merely scent inevitability. City have rolled on, somehow.