Johnny On The Spot: #SHAKATTACKED! On the 7th anniversary of the 1-6 Mancunian power shifter at the Theatre of Screams, Manchester City tonight delivered one of their finest ever Champions League performances 2000 miles from home on the Ukraine-Russia border…To a man, City were quintessentially brilliant. Shakhtar, the Ukrainian champions, imperious since a last defeat almost 3 months ago were smashed out of the Kharkiv park by the rampant Blues.
City were in total control from the first whistle and never relinquished it. Pep Guardiola’s vibrant team selection and game management were spot on, a swashbuckling first half registering 70% possession giving way to a controlled, calculated “pick ’em off” approach in the second period. Factually, but for our usual profligacy, City should have won this game by 6 or 7 goals. However. Most pleasing of all, England’s centurions delivered a 7th clean sheet in 9 games across all competitions.
The flight home tonight to light training tomorrow will be buoyant with the squad’s eyes firmly focused upon the train to Euston on Sunday and the Wembley showdown with Spurs. Planet Blue is back in the next game can’t come around quick enough territory. JB’s Man of The Match, a sublime Aymeric Laporte.
Metalist Stadium Kharkiv
UEFA Champions League - Group F
Referee: Carlos del Cerro Grande of Spain
| Shakhtar Donetsk | Manchester City | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silva (30'), Laporte (35') | |||||||
| 30 Andriy Pyatov | 31 Ederson | ||||||
| 22 Mykola Matvyenko | 5 John Stones | Walker 80' | |||||
| 4 Sergiy Krivtsov | 30 Nicolas Otamendi | ||||||
| 44 Yaroslav Rakitskiy | 14 Aymeric Laporte | ||||||
| 31 dos Santos | 22 Benjamin Mendy | ||||||
| 6 Taras Stepanenko | 17 Kevin De Bruyne | Bernardo Silva 69' | |||||
| 27 Maycon | 25 Fernandinho | ||||||
| 23 Silva Sanches Aguiar | Bolbat 69' | 21 David Silva | |||||
| 74 Viktor Kovalenko | Lourenco 62' | 26 Riyad Mahrez | |||||
| 99 Dos Santos Pedro | Dentinho 84' | 33 Gabriel Jesus | Foden 87' | ||||
| 10 Ribeiro Moraes Junior | 7 Raheem Sterling | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| 1 Oleksiy Shevchenko | 2 Kyle Walker | ||||||
| 2 Bohdan Butko | 4 Vincent Kompany | ||||||
| 5 Davit Khotcholava | 10 Sergio Agüero | ||||||
| 8 Olarenwaju Kayode | 19 Leroy Sané | ||||||
| 9 Dentinho | 20 Bernardo Silva | ||||||
| 21 Lourenco | 47 Philip Foden | ||||||
| 50 Sergiy Bolbat | 49 Aro Muric | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 13 | Goal attempts | 25 |
| 2 | On Target | 6 |
| 5 | Corners | 5 |
| 5 | Fouls | 14 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 48 | % | 52 |