#HAPPY ANNIVERSARY…Ten years on from when His Highness Sheikh Mansour came to town, Manchester City Football Club’s progress within the booming City Football Group continued with a win over a continually stagnating Newcastle which carried an element of routine even though Pep Guardiola’s men have still yet to find their stride after a hectic summer. Lest we forget at the start of last season, The Centurions did not really get going until mid September when Liverpool, Feyenoord and Watford were consecutively smashed out of the park to the tune of a cumulative 15-0…Much as I believe the draw at Wolves last week will prove to be an important point gained, that game and the one-sided third gear victory over The Magpies will also transpire to be important work outs ahead of far sterner challenges to come.
Onwards and upwards momentum is absolutely key at this time in a Premier League wherein its lesser lights, awash with vast swathes of TV cash are increasingly proving stronger and trickier to dispatch than was previously assumed by sides with title chasing aspirations. On paper City’s opening fixtures appear straight forward enough, but in reality the club that boasted the most players than any other on the planet in Russia this summer is engaged in a run of combative fixtures against keen as mustard recently promoted sides bursting with “AA.” Athleticism and Assassins. Cardiff away being the epicentre of this opening challenge.
Despite City still looking a little ring rusty and lacking balance, there was still enough in the tank to see off Rafa Benitez’s overly cautious team but the overall sense for us has to be one of collective relief that a contest that should have been over by half time is out of the way and can be chalked off. Invaluable playing time has been banked plus by the end of the International break we will be two weeks closer to the return of our game changing talisman Kevin De Bruyne whose options and direction of traffic were a glaring miss during Newcastle’s brief resurgence. JB’s Man of The Match was the imperious John Stones who looks to be running into some serious form built upon a super summer with England.
The Etihad Stadium
FA Premier League
Referee: Kevin Friend of Leicester
| Manchester City | Newcastle United | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sterling (8'), Walker (52') | Yedlin (30') | ||||||
| 31 Ederson | 12 Martin Dubravka | ||||||
| 2 Kyle Walker | 22 DeAndre Yedlin | ||||||
| 5 John Stones | 6 Jamaal Lascelles | ||||||
| 14 Aymeric Laporte | 18 Frederico Fernandez | ||||||
| 22 Benjamin Mendy | 2 Ciaran Clark | Murphy 81' | |||||
| 25 Fernandinho | 3 Paul Dummett | ||||||
| 26 Riyad Mahrez | Gündogan 76' | 15 Kenedy | Atsu 54' | ||||
| 21 David Silva | Kompany 89' | 10 Mohamed Diamé | |||||
| 7 Raheem Sterling | 4 Ki Sung-yueng | ||||||
| 33 Gabriel Jesus | Bernardo Silva 58' | 17 Ayoze Pérez | |||||
| 10 Sergio Agüero | 9 Jose Salomon Rondón | Joselu 73' | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| 4 Vincent Kompany | 7 Jacob Murphy | ||||||
| 8 Ilkay Gündogan | 13 Yoshinori Muto | ||||||
| 18 Fabian Delph | 21 Joselu | ||||||
| 20 Bernardo Silva | 25 Jamie Sterry | ||||||
| 30 Nicolas Otamendi | 26 Karl Darlow | ||||||
| 47 Philip Foden | 30 Christian Atsu | ||||||
| 49 Aro Muric | 36 Sean Longstaff | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 24 | Goal attempts | 3 |
| 8 | On Target | 2 |
| 4 | Corners | 0 |
| 5 | Fouls | 13 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 78 | % | 22 |