We’re breathing down your neck
Pep’s half-time rocket helps 102-goal City cut Liverpool lead to four
IT IS at this stage of the season that the good teams manage to win games while playing within themselves. One of the many remarkable things about Manchester City is that they can do this and still score three goals.
It sounds strange, but this was as modest a performance as we have seen from City recently and that includes the occasional game they have lost.
For the first 45 minutes, Pep Guardiola’s team were poor and the rollocking Leroy Sane later revealed had been administered by the City manager at the interval will have surprised nobody in the away dressing room. Nevertheless, this game was still over by the hour. That said much about Huddersfield, a team who will be down by Easter unless the replacement for the departed David Wagner manages to find the belief, enthusiasm and energy that was so miserably lacking here.
It said more about City, though. It is the Premier League champions’ relentless brilliance that has steadily sucked the optimism and courage out of the majority of opponents over the last two seasons. It is City who arrive at so many grounds to find teams already on the retreat mentally, scared to engage.
And that certainly helps on days like this, when standards slip. It helps to still score three goals and threaten more. It helps to keep City in the slipstream of Liverpool ahead of a title-race denouement that will surely take us all the way to the final weeks.
Liverpool remain favourites this season because they have a points advantage. However, it is not unfeasible that City win every game between now and the season’s end. They are probably the one team in the country capable of doing that and days like this only underline just how much quality they have. Liverpool really should not rest easy.
Here there was no Silva — Bernardo or David — in the starting line-up and no Riyad Mahrez in the squad at all. Phil Foden, meanwhile, stayed on the bench throughout. Still, though, City were more than good enough to score early and then take the game away from Huddersfield on the back of a brief but effective increase in tempo and energy early in the second half.
On reflection, City probably only played at full tilt for a total of about 20 minutes and, as unintentional as it was, maybe that is perfect for a time of year when fixtures arrive so relentlessly.
Huddersfield were very poor and
for the yorkshire club there would appear to be no way out of their predicament. Strangely, there seems to have been some kind of acceptance of their fate.
at half-time, the stadium announcer congratulated Huddersfield on a good first half, even though they were losing. at the end, the home team were applauded warmly.
If this analysis seems harsh, so be it. But Huddersfield are in trouble and need points. Goal difference is unlikely to be a factor for them. So why not play City on the front foot? What is there to lose at this stage of a difficult season?
Early in the game City — dressed in their horribly hallucinogenic away kit — were ponderous. So too were Huddersfield, which led to a rather dreary spectacle.
Things picked up a little when Raheem Sterling was denied an obvious penalty after being tripped by Terence Kongolo and then, three minutes later, City took the lead. The reserve left back danilo did not look a likely scorer when he lined up a shot from 25 yards. Certainly the effort was not going to beat Huddersfield goalkeeper Jonas Lossl until Christopher Schindler attempted to head the ball clear and diverted it instead into the corner of the net.
It was a dreadful, scrappy goal for Huddersfield to concede and it summed up the game until that point. We expected City to kick on but it didn’t really happen until early in the second half.
Sterling’s goal in the 54th minute — an impressive diving header from a Sane cross — was for the cameras. Sane, however, looked half a yard offside when he received the ball.
Four minutes later, there was no room for Huddersfield complaints. Kevin de Bruyne hassled Jason Puncheon into giving the ball away in the centre of the pitch and danilo played it up to Sergio aguero.
aguero’s header down into Sane’s path was perfectly executed and, when the Germany winger ran clear, he had the presence of mind to cushion the ball gently past Lossl rather than go for spectacular and unnecessary power.
after that, City retreated a little. They will require more energy for future challenges.