Man City Match Zone

Highly Critical Pundit Reacts To Premier League Topping Performance

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Former Arsenal and Celtic striker, and current Sky Sports Soccer Saturday football pundit, Charlie Nicholas was highly critical about Saturday afternoon’s Etihad performance against Brighton and Hove Albion.

Did he watch a different game?

I admit, due to reasons beyond my control I missed the first 30 minutes. Nevertheless, I saw both sides ‘going for it’. I loved the usually slick and integrated passing, and I LOVED Raheem Sterling’s performance. His attitude, passion, crisp and slick ball control was a memorising.

Raheem vs Brighton

A solid team City performance.

On the other hand, Charlie Nicholas had a different point of view.

“Very routine. The first goal calmed City down. They were in control but took too many touches – it was too slow at times. The service was slow to Aguero, and Guardiola must be getting frustrated with why the team is taking too many touches when they could release it quicker.

“Boredom can creep in [for City fans], people can take so much talent for granted and get used to it. But also a lot of teams just come and defend too, this was predictable, and perhaps [City fans] don’t like the predictability of what happens here. When you’ve got players on song here, it’s worth paying to see them. Today it was just a little bit slow, but about getting the three points.”

I appreciate his slant was different to mine but do I wear rose tinted glasses?

What did you think of the overall team performance?

Rate the players

Manchester City
2 – 0
Brighton & Hove Albion

Etihad Stadium

Premier League

29/09/2018 3:00 pm

Attendance: 54152

Referee: Lee Mason

Manchester City Brighton & Hove Albion
Raheem Steling (29) Sergio Aguero (65)
Ederson Mathew Ryan
Kyle Walker Martín Montoya
 
Nicolás Otamendi Shane Duffy
 
Aymeric Laporte Lewis Dunk
Oleksandr Zinchenko Gaëtan Bong
Bernardo Silva Davy Propper
Fernandinho Anthony Knockaert
 
(78)
David Silva (88) Beram Kayal
Raheem Sterling Yves Bissouma
Sergio Agüero (66) Solly March (83)
Leroy Sané (71) Jürgen Locadia (73)

Substitutes

Arijanet Muric Bruno
Danilo Leon Balogun
Vincent Kompany Alireza Jahanbakhsh (78)
John Stones Glenn Murray (73)
Riyad Mahrez (71) José Izquierdo (83)
Gabriel Jesus (66) David Button
Phil Foden (88) Bernardo Fernandes da Silva Junior

Game Statistics

28 Goal attempts 4
8 On Target 1
10 Corners 3
4 Fouls 10
0 Yellow Cards 3
0 Red Cards 0
80 % 20

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