Johnny On The Spot: Manchester City head back to the club’s second home Wembley in buoyant spirits following an 8th consecutive Premier League win…
That this most one sided of one sided football matches did not result in double figures-nil would ordinarily be beyond belief were it not for the combination of City’s profligacy and the heroics of the Andy Dibble coached Neil Etheridge. The biggest Blues culprit was birthday boy Gabriel Jesus. In point of fact, The Blues repeated far too regularly against Cardiff the type of missed opportunities that we simply cannot afford versus the much stronger opposition to come as the business end of the season intensifies.
The Welsh side sat deep throughout Josep Guardiola’s 164th game in charge of City, El Gaffer having now bypassed his 160 matches at Bayern Munich. The onus fell upon a heavily rotated City side to deliver the impetus and they seized the opportunity to boss the game close to impeccably. Should Neil Warnock’s side evade the drop, the outstanding Etheridge could yet play a big role in that escape.
Outside of the champions missing the chance to pile the goal difference upwards and onwards ahead of Liverpool and their City obsessed players, there are only a couple of downers to report from yet another super display of attacking football. Oleks Zinchenko who has made the left back spot his own is going to be sidelined for a while with a hamstring injury that will hopefully be only a pull, not a tear. Benjamin Mendy, get yourself sorted. Meanwhile, Riyad Mahrez is looking more and more like a one trick pony, constantly looking to cut inside and shoot whilst offering up no other options.
However, the plusses by far and away outpoint the minuses tonight with 6 league fixtures remaining. The City juggernaut has now won 19 of its 21 matches in all competitions in 2019 (D1, L1), scoring 68 goals in the process. The greatest plus of all being the rest afforded to the likes of the two Silvas, Raz Sterling and Ilkay Gündogan. Pep’s team selection for Wembley ahead of the Spurs showdowns will be intriguing.
JB’s Man of The Match: Kevin De Bruyne. Narrowly eclipsing the brilliant Phil Foden, City’s Commander-in-Chief is looking ominously good.
The Etihad Stadium
FA Premier League
4/03/2019 7:45 pm
Attendance: 53,559
Referee: Jonathan Moss of West Yorkshire
Manchester City | Cardiff | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
De Bruyne (6'), Sané (44') | |||||||
31 Ederson | 1 Neil Etheridge | ||||||
3 Danilo | 2 Lee Peltier | ||||||
14 Aymeric Laporte | 4 Sean Morrison | ||||||
35 Oleks Zinchenko | Walker 19' | 5 Bruno Ecuele Manga | |||||
5 John Stones | 3 Joe Bennett | ||||||
25 Fernandinho | 17 Aron Gunnarsson | Bacuna 81' | |||||
47 Philip Foden | 33 Junior Hoilett | ||||||
26 Riyad Mahrez | 21 Victor Camarasa | De Cordova-Reid 83' | |||||
33 Gabriel Jesus | 8 Joe Ralls | ||||||
17 Kevin De Bruyne | 11 Josh Murphy | Mendez-Laing 60' | |||||
19 Leroy Sané | 29 Oumar Niasse | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
2 Kyle Walker | 10 Kenneth Zohore | ||||||
4 Vincent Kompany | 14 Bobby De Cordova-Reid | ||||||
7 Raheem Sterling | 15 Leandro Bacuna | ||||||
8 Ilkay Gündogan | 18 Greg Cunningham | ||||||
20 Bernardo Silva | 19 Nathaniel Mendez-Laing | ||||||
21 David Silva | 23 Kadeem Harris | ||||||
49 Aro Muric | 28 Brian Murphy |
Game Statistics |
||
27 | Goal attempts | 3 |
11 | On Target | 1 |
17 | Corners | 4 |
3 | Fouls | 7 |
0 | Yellow Cards | 3 |
0 | Red Cards | 0 |
80 | % | 20 |