As they defeated Aston Villa 3-1 on Sunday at Emirates Stadium, Manchester City cut the gap between themselves and the league leaders Arsenal to one point. Their great scorer Erling Haaland left the game with what appeared to be an injury.
Manchester City closes the gap
Pep Guardiola’s team bounced back with a huge victory following a trying week in which the Premier League smacked the club with 100 allegations of rule-breaking. However, Haaland, who has 25 goals for the team this season, was taken off the field at halftime with what seemed to be a thigh injury, casting question on his availability for Wednesday’s game against Arsenal.
Following charges of financial fair-play violations, City supporters booed loudly during the Premier League anthem at the beginning of the game, and it was obvious that the players were determined to prove a message.
- Advertisement -
In the fourth minute, Rodri scored and celebrated by banging the club badge against his breast. For most of the first half, City continued to dominate Aston. Shortly after scoring, Rodgri came close to scoring again, but Ilkay Gundogan’s shot was stopped.
The hosts kept creating opportunities for themselves, and Jack Grealish almost scored twice. Gundogan increased City’s advantage in the 39th minute. After Chambers’ failed header, Haaland—who had not even fired a shot against Tottenham—accelerated onto the loose ball, did significant damage to Aston and assisted Gundogan into the far post.
Just before halftime, City was awarded a penalty, and Riyad Karim Mahrez stepped up to beat Emiliano Martinez and score. 3-0 was the final score after 45+1 minutes. Haaland had also developed a thigh problem by this point, so she sat out the second half. Julian Alvarez and Manuel Akanji joined the team on the field after Ruben Dias and other players were taken off.
Ollie Watkins took advantage of some shoddy play by City’s defense in the second half to score in the 61st minute, bringing the score to 3-1.
However, Aston was unable to recover later in the game and lost the game.
- Advertisement -
Pep, the manager of Man City, was quoted as stating to Sky Sports following the game, “We did a great job playing the game. The second half was when we played better. I thought we would score more, but the Premier League is always open once we give up at 3-1. Nonetheless, we performed well overall.”
Regarding Erling Haaland’s potential damage, he said: “He received a significant knock, was at ease, and we did not want to take a chance. In the next days, we will observe and evaluate. We will play another one if he is not fit to play against Arsenal. Hopefully, he is prepared like everyone else; in the next days, we’ll find out. Although he is quite present, he needs to look a little closer when the ball is under pressure. We need to find the opponent a little bit more when he has a high line. We will carry out that approach in the future.”
Pep spoke on cutting Arsenal’s point deficit to to three “As in the past, when we might have put pressure on them, but failed, we were there to shorten the margin when they finally dropped. When they lost points, we failed; nevertheless, today we succeeded.”
Unai Emery, the manager of Aston Villa, added to Sky Sports: “We had a great deal of competitiveness while playing away [in our previous games], but today we knew it would be a difficult game, and it was. We didn’t play well in the first half. Although they were equally clinical, today’s blunders belonged to them. In other games, we could have prevented three of those goals.”
“We attempted to maintain our composure on the field, ignore the outcome, and resume competition in the second half, and I believe we succeeded. But they outperformed us in the first half. Without making a mistake, they made the decision.”
“I’m sorry to the supporters, but we’re going to keep going. Our task, at home against Arsenal, is our next game. We want to put on a strong display for our fans, “Emery came to an end.
With 48 points and 15 victories in 22 games, Manchester City sits in second place in the standings. Aston Villa, on the other hand, has just eight victories in 22 games and now sits in 11th place in the standings with 28 points.
