Mendy’s title roar
Four wins from the title, City are a team of all the talents
IT IS around this time of the season when the bored, the bitter, the malevolent and the jealous begin to criticise t he best si de in t he Premier League. Remember all that LiVARpool chatter last season when they were about 20 points clear of the rest and had not lost a game. That was funny.
Now it is Manchester City’s turn to be damned by fools. An hour into their game against Leicester City, as Pep Guardiola’s side prepared to move 17 points clear at the top of the table, it appeared to be the fashion to observe how dull ‘possession football’ was and how City’s brand of pass and move was killing the sport. That was funny, too.
It was particularly amusing, in fact, because at roughly the same time as this bile was being spewed, City scored one of the best goals of the season, a goal that epitomised everything that i s good about football and everything that makes the heart sing when this City team tear opponents apart.
Kevin De Bruyne was at the heart of this moment. City were already leading 1-0 through a goal from Benjamin Mendy when Riyad Mahrez laid the ball into the path of De Bruyne inside the Leicester half.
De Bruyne looked up, wrongfooted his marker by checking his movement and darting to his right and then threaded a ball through the Leicester defence. Two Leicester defenders hurled themselves at the pass but it eluded both of them. Gabriel Jesus ran on to it and squared it for Raheem Sterling.
Leicester’s defenders danced a ballet of the damned, darting and turning and sliding and falling. All in vain. Sterling checked back, sat a Leicester defender on his backside and passed back to Jesus, who passed it into the unguarded net.
And that is why Manchester City will be champions to be celebrated. And I am sorry, but if you do not like it, if all you can do is moan and whine about possession football, then you might as well give up. If you are bored of Manchester City, you are bored of sport.
Even if much of the preamble to the game centred around the fact that Sergio Aguero, City’s record goalscorer, will be leaving the club at the end of the season, this game provided more proof that City will not be lost without him. Aguero g started the game but had d little influence on it. These days, ays, City are a team who can an score from anywhere and d anyone.
Maybe City will sign Erling Haaland in the summer but they do not need him. This 2-0 win was more evidence that they are already a team of all the talents.
Call it possession football if you want but when en City hit their stride, it t is more like total football. They have now won 15 away games in succession and they are edging closer and closer to becoming the first English team to win the quadruple after 118 years of trying in our game. The biggest threat is probably Bayern Munich or PSG in a prospective Champions League semi-final, although Jose Mourinho may be preparing something special for the Carabao Cup final meeting with his Spurs side later this month.
City here looked like a team secure in their own ability, happy in their skin. They left Sterling, John Stones and Phil Foden on the bench after their endeavours for England and watched as their replacements stepped up. Leicester tried to smash and grab them but City were too good to fall into the trap.
Leicester’s day had started well when news of Chelsea’s startling defeat at the hands of West Brom unfolded goal by goal and card by card. The result meant that the gap between Leicester and Thomas Tuchel’s side remained at five points.
City thought they had taken the lead in the fifth minute when Fernandinho lashed a shot from the edge of the box low into the corner of the ne net past the out stretched right hand of Kasper Schmeichel. Schmeichel protested furiously because Aguero, who was offside, had jumped out of the way of the ball. Referee Anthony Taylor agreed and the goal was ruled out.
City spent the next 15 minutes working the ball patiently and precisely around Leicester’s welldrilled side without being close to finding an opening. When an attempted clearance from Timothy Castagne was charged down on the edge of the box, it fell over the shoulder of Aguero in a long, looping arc. He hit it on the volley first time with his left foot but it flew high over the bar.
Midway through the half, City almost got lucky. They were awarded a free-kick a few yards outside the Leicester box even though there had been no contact with De Bruyne when he fell after taking a shot. De Bruyne took the free-kick himself and the beautifully struck dipping effort cannoned off the face of the bar and bounced away to safety.
City should then have taken the lead. Mahrez slipped a neat pass inside for Jesus to run on to. Aguero had forced his way in front of his marker in the six-yard box and would have had a tapin but Jesus could only slide the ball weakly into the arms of Schmeichel.
City pressed and pressed for the opener. Five minutes before half- t i me, Mahrez ran on to a sumptuous flick from Jesus and advanced on Schmeichel. He drilled the ball low but the keeper stuck out his right leg and diverted it away.
Leicester had not yet mustered a shot on target but on the stroke of half- time, they gave City a reminder of the danger they pose. They won the ball in midfield and moved it to Ayoze Perez. He played in Jamie Vardy and Vardy danced around Ederson before rolling the ball into the net. But the linesman’s flag was up. Vardy had strayed offside.
Youri Tielemans managed Leicester’s first effort on goal on 48 minutes and, emboldened, the home side managed another two minutes later. Fernandinho lost the ball, Kelechi Iheanacho burst forward and
fed Tielemans, whose drive was deflected wide by a superb diving block from Ruben Dias.
The game was springing into life now. De Bruyne chipped a clever ball down the left for Jesus to run on to and when his first touch took him past Jonny Evans to the goalline, he hit his cross deep to the back post where Aguero was waiting. Aguero met the ball cleanly on the volley but it hit the legs of Castagne and spiralled away.
City threatened again just before the hour and this time they forced the breakthrough their football had deserved. Schmeichel beat away a drive from Mahrez but Leicester could not clear the ball and when it found its way to Mendy 12 yards out, he cut inside Marc Albrighton on to his weaker right foot and bent the ball expertly round Schmeichel into the corner.
Aguero was withdrawn two minutes later and replaced by Sterling and the England forward soon played a critical part in wrapping things up with his pass to enable Jesus to cap City’s sublime move. The threats come from everywhere with City. If it bores you, then you may be someone who finds excitement in football hard to come by.