SHAKEN AND
Pep’s gets more out recalled Raheem and says: It’s vital out forwards start scoring
WHEN Pep Guardiola speaks his stars tend to listen – just ask Raheem Sterling.
The Manchester City attacker found himself on the substitutes’ bench for the rampage against Burnley, with Guardiola demanding a better goal output from his England front man.
It wasn’t a studs up on Sterling from the Spaniard, more a mild rebuke for a player who was City’s top scorer last season with 30 goals in all competitions.
But it did the trick – and restored to the Premier League starting line-up against Fulham, Sterling delivered exactly what his boss had been wanting on his 700th game in management and his 250th as City chief.
Sterling scored the opener and won a penalty for the imperious Kevin De Bruyne who was once again the heartbeat of a City side ominously moving through the gears after an unusually slow start to their campaign.
With Sergio Aguero missing with injury, Guardiola’s been concerned about the flow of goals which, until City drubbed Burnley, was way below normal standards.
And when Sterling gave his side a fifth-minute lead against a Fulham side who have leaked goals for fun, Guardiola must have fancied another scoring blizzard following the 5- 0 drubbing of Burnley.
But the avalanche never arrived, leaving Guardiola critical of his stars for missing a host of chances to post another big score.
“The finishing was wasteful,” he said.
“For the chances we had, we should score more and it was the same in Porto.
“We know we have to improve this, but it’s important to keep creating the chances. In the last 20 minutes we lost too many simple balls, which is a problem.
“We have to do the simple things better. That is the next step.
“Sterling scored a goal and won a penalty.
“It’s important for the players up front to be scoring goals.
“We struggled at the beginning of the season for many reasons. Now in four games we’ve had four clean sheets.
“It’s so important for us to maintain this solidity.” And yet
Guard i o la clearly wanted more from his attack.
At least this latest victory did see the Blues arrive into more familiar territory in the table.
There was never a question of if City would beat Fulham, but by how many.
And it took them just three minut es to declare their i n ten t to dish out the
With all the chances we had, we should have scored more. It was the same against Porto, and we just have to improve this.
kind of treatment they inflicted on Burnley the previous week.
Riyad Mahrez, a hat- trick hero in the rout of Burnley, carved the first opening darting forward to find Sterling who seemed certain to score. But he was denied by a smart save from Alphonse Areola.
The Frenchman was always going to be Fulham’s most important player and without his intervention it would have been worse for Scott Parker’s men. Sterling’s miss was merely delaying the inevitable and less than two minutes later the England star was on the scoresheet.
A wonderful change of pace and drive forward by
D De Bruyne ended with a pass to St Sterling which the striker buried bu for his third league goal of the campaign.
If not for Areola, Fulham could have been further behind but City’s second arrived after 26 minutes with Sterling in the thick of it again.
The jinking st r iker bamboozled Joachim Andersen, panicking the Dane into tripping Sterling to gift a penalty to De Bruyne which the Belgian smashed home.
With that Sterling set a Premier League record for winning most penalties, having earnt a 20th spot-kick.
Despi te City ’ s total domination there were no more goals with Fulham showing more backbone than Burnley had, especially in the second half with City old boy Tosin Adarabioyo standing up to be counted.
Fulham boss Parker said: “If you lose matches, you’re obviously disappointed. But I saw a team that had some fight.
“I really liked what we were about in the second half.
“Teams come here and get swept away but, at times, the players were very brave, had courage and played.
“There was a lot of positives. There’s no shame in losing to City. I asked for spirit and personally and I thought we had that.”