Man City Match Zone

Imperious City The First To Eighty Points

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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.

Manchester City
2 – 0
Cardiff

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

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