STERLING EFFORT
RAHEEM PUTS CITY 15 CLEAR
NOT only are Manchester City a terrifically exciting football team, they also have the majority of the Premier League in a psychological stranglehold. Here was the hard evidence. This was a game that only really became a contest in the final 10 minutes.
Newcastle and their manager Rafael Benitez clearly didn’t believe they could beat City, not even at home. Who really does believe they can beat them any more?
Pep Guardiola’s team have now won their last 18 league games, are 15 points clear at the top, and that run has drained the belief, the optimism and the courage from just about everybody else.
This really was the strangest spectacle. Newcastle began the game with a shot from their own kick-off and then retreated to the edge of their own penalty area and raised the shields, not in combat but in what was largely a rather meek symbol of defence.
We have seen teams defend against City, and against other good teams, before. Going toe to toe with a team like this one will not generally get you very far.
But this was different. There was no fast start like you may expect from a team with more than 50,000 people crammed in to watch. There was no press or energy when City had the ball, no attempt to unsettle them or hurry them.
Only in those last 10 minutes did Newcastle emerge and when they did they almost grabbed the most unlikely point. Dwight Gayle stooped to head with two minutes left and missed by only a foot.
So maybe this was the plan after all. Maybe Newcastle manager Rafael Benitez is a visionary. He is the man who has made a rather modest group of players competitive in this league so we certainly must afford him the assumption that he knows what he is doing.
There is an argument to say that Newcastle’s next game — at home to Brighton on Saturday — is much bigger than this one and the one thing Benitez’s team didn’t suffer here is great damage to their goal difference.
None of that made this any less weird to watch, though. City completed about 400 more passes than Newcastle in the first half. At one stage the possession percentage was running at 85 per cent to 15 and this was reflected by the subdued nature of the crowd. In Newcastle they usually see their team have a go but not here.
Benitez’s team-sheet suggested a three-man defence but in truth it had five members. From the outset they sat on the edge of their own penalty area and hardly moved.
So Guardiola’s team set about moving the ball around the way that they so often do and looked for the spaces, and the goal, that they doubtless hoped would open up the game.
They probably should have scored sooner than they did. Kevin De Bruyne was their best player and saw an early free-kick headed towards goal by Gabriel Jesus and touched over by Rob Elliot. It was a great save.
De Bruyne also shot over twice from distance while Sergio Aguero should have done better than sidefoot wide when presented with an early chance by a lovely cross-field pass by left back Danilo.
When the breakthrough arrived on the half-hour, De Bruyne was involved. His chipped pass down the inside left channel found Raheem Sterling darting intelligently beyond the Newcastle defence to volley past Elliot with his instep from an angle.
Briefly this drew Newcastle out. Almost immediately Rolando Aarons chipped towards goal after Kyle Walker slipped over and Nicolas Otamendi had to head clear from the line. Hopes grew that Newcastle were about to change their tactics, but, into the second half, not much changed.
De Bruyne miscued early in the second period after a sumptuous one- two with Jesus and then struck a post from distance. Jesus rolled in the rebound but was offside. There was also a low effort from Ilkay Gundogan that was pushed aside by Elliot.
The Newcastle goalkeeper had a decent game on the whole while at the other end City’s Ederson only got warm in the final stages.
Benitez’s players pushed forwards late on as City, strangely, began to lose some of their selfassurance. Was something really quite extraordinary in the offing?
The home crowd clearly thought so and they found their voice. Gayle, on as a substitute, fell under a Danilo challenge in the box but was booked for diving. Gayle was subsequently to have his chance and, set up by a Christian Atsu cross, his 89th-minute header pointed briefly to an incredible climax.
But as it was, City’s wagon rolled on. Who can stop them? More pertinently, does anybody really believe that they can?