Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘INCREDIBLE’ CITY SERG TOP
Fulham 0 Man City 2
PEP GUARDIOLA praised an “incredible” display as City moved a point clear at the top of the Premier League.
Goals from Bernardo Silva and Sergio Aguero gave them the advantage in the title race, with rivals Liverpool playing Tottenham today.
Guardiola admitted: “The first 15-20 minutes was incredible with the way we played. We are going to do everything to win. No matter the next competition, we will win the game.”
PRESSURE? It is not as though Jurgen Klopp could have been oblivious to it anyway.
A must-win match against an accomplished Big-Six rival?
Liverpool knew that before the formalities were completed at Craven Cottage.
But do not, for one moment, think that an extra notch of nervous tension has not jolted through Klopp’s challengers ahead of today’s meeting with Tottenham Hotspur.
Fail to win and, come 10pm on Wednesday, they will have
a gap to bridge hinting at the ominous.
Because, while almost certainly not as comfortably as they took care of business against Fulham, City will surely send Cardiff packing, pointless, in midweek.
At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, that is why no Anfield slip can be afforded against Spurs.
Pep Guardiola’s side will not face opposition as tame as Championship-bound Fulham again this season.
Cardiff will put up a fight at the Etihad, that is for sure,
certainly a grittier scrap than one that produced no Fulham attempts on target and no Fulham corners.
And you can bet it will be a fight that will feature more than four fouls against the champions.
No one is advocating violence – and it is hard to get close to most of these guys.
But there was barely a physical defiance about a team managed, albeit temporarily, by an interim boss whose playing days were all about physical defiance.
Fulham’s performance was a
This was not classic City... it was an exercise in reacquaintance
masterclass in flimsiness. And, if you are curmudgeonly enough, if you are suitably sour, to want to go hunting for portents of City vulnerability, then you could point to the fact that they were wasteful, complacent almost, squandering a chance to rack up an almost unassailable goal difference.
Raheem Sterling, the young man who can do no wrong, did do a little wrong.
Pep certainly did not look overly enamoured of his contribution. And, after 20 minutes of ultra-sharpness throughout the entire ranks, a tinge of sloppiness crept in.
But it was more likely a subconscious conservation of energy ahead of a formidably challenging finale to the season on the domestic and European fronts.
Of more concern might be Sergio Aguero’s early clocking off, although it was, apparently, a precaution taken solely by the player himself.
City can certainly ill-afford to miss Aguero’s almost incomparable scoring ability in tight, threatening areas. It is right to point to Fulham mistakes – from, first, Timothy Fosu-Mensah and, then, Joe Bryan – in the preambles to both City goals.
But that would be to unfairly siphon some credit away from Bernardo Silva for his clinical left-footed finish and, even more so, from Aguero for his blink-of-an-eye deadliness.
It was classic Aguero. The dart between two defenders, the minimal backlift, the unexpectedly high conversion from a tight angle.
This was not classic City. This was City reconvening for a training session after an international break. This was City getting to know each other again. This was an exercise in reacquaintance.
But, while they will not meet anyone as compliant as Fulham in their remaining seven Premier League fixtures, there was still enough here to suggest an unblemished run-in is possible, even if the demands of chasing a quadruple will be punishing.
There was certainly enough to remind Klopp and Liverpool that a perfect run-in is almost definitely required if his men are to win that first title in 29 years.
Then again, they probably did not need reminding of that. City did it all the same, though.
So it is over to Klopp, Liverpool and a test far more daunting than a cruise by the Thames.
Of course, they knew it already, but pressure on? You bet.