SANE SEALS IT FOR CITY
Germany star hits double to clinch top spot...while Sterling is in the wars
AFTER a difficult few days, Raheem Sterling went back to work and Manchester City went back to winning. City are through to the next round of the Champions League as group winners and it is worth noting that they are the only English club who can say that.
Neither Sterling, the victim of alleged racial abuse as City lost at Chelsea on Saturday, nor his team were at their best here on a night when Pep Guardiola’s side started slowly but improved to win. If that proves to be portentous for their progress through the competition then they will take it.
But on reflection this was probably a good way for City’s England forward to return to action after the rancour of the weekend and the publicity that has followed.
It was a low-key night on the whole but Sterling played his part in City’s winning goal in the second half and his only cause for regret will be that he missed a good chance to score himself late in the game.
Sterling, 24, is enjoying a good season in front of goal and has scored 11 times for City and England so far. The fact that he could have had more — that it still feels as though this is an area in which he can improve — is perhaps indicative of how many good positions he now manages to take up. That is what tends to happen when good players play in good teams.
Here he was only eight yards or so from goal when Phil Foden’s cross reached him from the right in the 86th minute. But in attempting to place the ball across and wide of Hoffenheim’s excellent goalkeeper Oliver Baumann, he only managed to steer it past the far post.
So a good night didn’t become a very good night but the most important thing for Sterling was that his team won this game. City’s defeat at Chelsea on Saturday arrived out of nowhere given the way they dominated the first half so to have fallen behind early here would have troubled them a little.
Certainly Guardiola was not a happy man in the early stages, jumping off his seat as a mistake by 21-year-old left back Oleksandr Zinchenko allowed Andrej Kramaric to shoot over. Then, a few minutes later, Hoffenheim’s Croatia international brought a superb fingertip save from City goalkeeper Ederson.
If City were learning their lesson early in the game — namely to stop giving Kramaric so much space — then they were not showing it. In the 21st minute he was allowed to give Hoffenheim the lead from the penalty spot after Aymeric Laporte’s clumsy foul on Benjamin Hubner and all of a sudden the home team were up against it a little.
With Sterling starved of quality ball down the right side and young Foden asserting his undoubted ability only sporadically, City’s best chance of a way back into the game seemed to come from set-pieces during a first half in which they slowly grew in stature.
Gabriel Jesus headed one chance against a post, Nicolas Otamendi another against the bar and in between John Stones brought a save from Baumann with a downward effort.
Ultimately Sane stepped up to produce a piece of real quality in the dying seconds of the half and his left-foot free-kick from 30 yards gave Baumann no chance at all.
That proved the decisive moment of the game. Obliged to chase the win that could have given them credibility in the group, Hoffenheim started to leave huge holes at the back and City could have walked away with the game had they been a little more clinical.
Sterling, Sane and Foden began to revel in the open spaces. Sterling is a fine sight in flight and he revelled in this for a while. One three-on-one break saw him pass inside to Sane only for Bernardo Silva to shoot against Baumann’s legs when it looked easier to score.
Then, in the 61st minute, Sane and Sterling exchanged passes nicely and the German used the space he was given on the left to beat Baumann with a low shot under the body.
Inevitably more chances followed and the platform for Baumann to exhibit his excellence only grew. One save from Foden was spectacular as the City teenager lashed a volley towards the top corner, while a double save right at the start of the half from Laporte — a header and a follow-up shot — had been simply stunning.
Afterwards, Guardiola was asked about some abuse Sane appeared to cop from the Hoffenheim fans as he took a corner in the first half. Guardiola hadn’t seen it — how could he have? — but it appears thi this ih is how it will ill b be f from now on f for a while. The bandwagon is rolling.
As for Sterling, Guardiola said he had no doubt about playing him and described his performance as ‘top’. That was probably overstating things a little but if ever we were going to forgive Guardiola a little exaggeration then it was here.
Sterling and Guardiola will have bigger nights than this, better nights. Both no doubt will hope to emerge from Saturday’s Premier League game against Everton talking only about the football.