Manchester City captain’s had already shown how valuable he still is to his manager in the last few weeks even before Monday’s heroic winning goal against LeicesterWhat a way, potentially, to go – via the sweetest of matchwinning, 30-yard goals. With almost 70 minutes played and Manchester City’s title defence in peril, up stepped Vincent Kompany to fire a rocket past Leicester City’s Kasper Schmeichel in the penultimate game of their season-long tussle with Liverpool.If it proves the final significant act of Kompany’s stellar 11 years at the club, this will be a fitting, storybook ending. After a victory that means City can retain the title by beating Brighton on Sunday the 33-year-old denied he would retire. But Kompany did...
The feeling persists that the club, as opposed to the fans, regard extra amounts of domestic silverware as merely ornamentalJust over three years ago, Leicester City were visitors at the Etihad when the worst-kept secret in European football was confirmed – Pep Guardiola had agreed to take over as Manchester City manager and would replace Manuel Pellegrini in the summer. By way of celebration City managed to get themselves trounced by a side on their way to winning the league. Any hopes Pellegrini and his players had of adding another title to the ones City won in 2012 and 2014 were ended by the Foxes’ rampant away form, just as Tottenham’s had been a few weeks earlier.Leicester were frequently unstoppable...
Leicester can test City but Liverpool face a challenge of their own, it’s all or nothing for Cardiff and Watford need to regroupFollowing the disappointment of their reasonably heroic Champions League defeat at Barcelona, Liverpool must rouse themselves for what could be an extremely tricky Saturday evening appointment at Newcastle in which they simply cannot afford to slip up. With only two matches of the Premier League campaign remaining, anything less than a win for Liverpool would leave the door open for Manchester City to all but wrap up the title on Monday. One suspects this is a far tougher assignment than Jürgen Klopp would like so soon after a gruelling and dispiriting game at the Camp Nou and the...
A chance for Shaqiri to shine, City may need to show their dark side and Cardiff can pile pressure on BrightonPep Guardiola is not usually short of post-match praise for his players, but he struck a different note after the Manchester derby win. “Tonight we can enjoy it, but tomorrow it’s over, so we have to be focused,” he said. “I know people are going to talk about how beautiful, how handsome we are, but now we have to go to Burnley”. Guardiola is rightly taking nothing for granted even after taking the necessary six points from Spurs and United. Burnley were one of six teams to take points off City last season and have routinely posed problems for the...
Alexis Sánchez might have been in Bernardo Silva’s place on Wednesday had things panned out differently but that would have gone against the tone and texture of Pep Guardiola’s teamOf the many telling facts, stats and scalding-hot takes to emerge from Wednesday night’s Manchester derby – a game that felt as if two clubs were passing briefly on airport travelators, waving curtly as they rolled off in opposite directions – perhaps the most poignant was the touch map of Alexis Sánchez. Related: Dominant Manchester City show how vast the gulf has become with United | Jonathan Wilson Alexis Sanchez came on for a total of 12 minutes tonight.This is his touch map...#ManchesterDerby #MUNMCI pic.twitter.com/yHyyaunyQK Related: Manchester City's derby delight, focus...