Sane now starting to make Sterling progress at City
THOSE balmy, warm days of late summer seem to belong to another world right now. As does that time back in August when Leroy Sane couldn’t even make the Manchester City substitutes bench.
Back then Pep Guardiola denied he was making a point. But now Sane is demonstrating the form which could see him develop into one of the more terrifying wide players in Europe, Guardiola is keener to expound on the problem with the German.
With Raheem Sterling, he provided the thrust in what might have been an idling performance otherwise, meaning his manager was keen to send a message. Firstly, one of praise. ‘I don’t know what Leroy ate before the game but maybe we should put it on the menu for everyone,’ he said.
Then came the challenge, which alluded to the tension earlier in the season. ‘When he is going to complain in the future to his manager why he doesn’t play, I will send this video,’ said Guradiola. ‘Because if he plays this way, he is going to play. He was incredible, offensively, defensively, creating chances, positive in the mind, reactions. And sometimes it’s not there.
‘We never doubt Leroy but he is young, 22, And sometimes up and down is normal. Maybe in the future, he will realise how important it is (and) he will be more consistent like Fernandinho, David Silva, Bernardo Silva: every time eight or nine (out of ten).
‘That is what we are looking for from him.’
The gauntlet was well and truly laid down. It is a challenge to which Sterling has responded in the past and he was eventually decisive again yesterday.
City took the lead on 16 minutes. Olek Zinchenko seemed constantly to be looking for that ball to him over the top. So it was on that on 16 minutes the Ukrainian lifted the ball for Sane to run on to. Asmir Begovic was first to it, pushing it away but only to Bernando Silva who opened the scoring.
Yet therafter you could almost smell the complacency.
When the equaliser arrived on 44 minutes, it wasn’t wholly a surprise. Josh King held the ball up superbly before moving it on to Lewis Cook. He fed Simon Francis and his cross invited Callum Wilson to make a fine leap to direct the ball into the right hand corner of Ederson’s net. It was a wake-up call.
And you sense that Guardiola knows the only thing that will defeat City this season would be a premature sense of entitlement.
A minute later Fabian Delph won the ball back, fed Fernandinho who turned it on to Sterling. He released Danilo down the left, and the Brazilian’s shot was parried by Begovic. But Sterling, alert as ever, followed up with more intent than anyone and made it 2-1.
City sealed the game on 79 minuites from a Sane corner when Ilkay Gundogan finished off a clever corner-kick routine started by Sane.