Striker burgled a spectacular winning goal but helped his team as a pressing midfielder, playmaker and false forward
About an hour before kick-off at the Etihad Stadium a member of staff walks around handing out puzzles. At most grounds they are more popularly known as “team sheets”, but ever since Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City the exercise of deciphering his starting XI has become almost as absorbing as watching it. Brows are furrowed. Heads are scratched. Is that Bernardo Silva as a false 9? João Cancelo in midfield? That can’t be an 8, or a 7, and the 5 goes there, so … Ederson at centre-half?
The real trick, of course, is realising that at Guardiola’s City, formations and starting points are largely an irrelevance. Roles switch every 10 minutes. Positions switch every 10 seconds. What matters is the situation, of which no two are ever the same. City’s equalising goal came from a Raheem Sterling cross, attacked by Kevin De Bruyne at the near post, bundled home by Ilkay Gündogan. But you could swap any of those three names around and still picture exactly what happened.
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