Johnny On The Spot: #ENERGYCONSERVATION. Manchester City’s big push on four fronts endures in spite of an at times unnecessarily frenetic performance in Yorkshire. But looking at the bigger picture, the Blues more reserved approach at an already doomed Huddersfield is in order as Pep Guardiola’s men have embarked upon a run of 7 games in 30 days. During the same period, the media’s champions elect Liverpool will play only 3 times.
Two guarantees. There are no easy games in the top flight and neither are there any top quality English referees. In these respects you can only beat and deal with what’s in front of you. The City squad is answering all the questions asked of it since a difficult injury list caught up with them over Christmas. No matter who you face, if you don’t show up, especially on the road, you will get beat. André Marriner, for his part, was at his scattergun worst. His failures to award Raz Sterling a stonewall penno or dismiss Kyle Walker and Jon Hogg for rash challenges beggared belief. Mike Riley the refereeing overlord was present for this one and it is stunning to consider that he remains in his role following FIFA’s reluctance to risk any Premier League referees at the last World Cup.
City did enough. The temptation was to go for broke and match balls once an often nasty Huddersfield, backed by a defiantly raucous home crowd gave up the ghost, but Pep opted for game management to get the job done. 25 goals scored and only 1 conceded in 5 games for the calendar year is a fine return and with the champions effective now all fully fit, few would bet against City making deeper domestic progress ahead of the Etihad double header with Arsenal and Chelsea next month.
Records-wise we have yet another one to report. The Blues are now the first team in the top five European leagues to score 100 goals in all competitions this season. Make no mistake, City have their mojo back and are deploying it economically.
JB’s Man Of The Match: Ederson. Composed, assured and alert when called upon.
The Alfred Mcalpine Stadium
FA Premier League
1:30 pm
Referee: Andre Marriner of The West Midlands
Huddersfield Town | Manchester City | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Danilo (18'), Sterling (54'),Sané (56') | |||||||
1 Jonas Lössl | 31 Ederson | ||||||
2 Tom Smith | 2 Kyle Walker | ||||||
26 Christopher Schindler | 30 Nicolas Otamendi | ||||||
5 Terence Kongolo | 14 Aymeric Laporte | ||||||
15 Chris Löwe | 3 Danilo | ||||||
9 Elias Kachunga | 17 Kevin De Bruyne | ||||||
42 Jason Puncheon | 25 Fernandinho | Silva 59' | |||||
6 Jonathan Hogg | 8 Ilkay Gündogan | Delph 80' | |||||
7 Juninho Bacuna | Pritchard 64' | 7 Raheem Sterling | |||||
18 Isaac Mbenza | 10 Sergio Agüero | ||||||
11 Adama Diakhaby | Mounie 59' | 19 Leroy Sané | Bernardo Silva 72' | ||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
12 Ben Hamer | 5 John Stones | ||||||
20 Laurent Depoitre | 18 Fabian Delph | ||||||
21 Alex Pritchard | 20 Bernardo Silva | ||||||
24 Steve Mounie | 21 David Silva | ||||||
25 M Jorgensen | 33 Gabriel Jesus | ||||||
33 Florent Hadergjonaj | 47 Philip Foden | ||||||
37 Erik Durm | 49 Aro Muric |
Game Statistics |
||
5 | Goal attempts | 12 |
2 | On Target | 4 |
1 | Corners | 4 |
9 | Fouls | 7 |
2 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
0 | Red Cards | 0 |
29 | % | 71 |