Manchester City take home a 1–0 win over Southampton
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A game that had a lot many chances but a lone City goal

The match between the two teams fighting for a top 4 slot in the Premier League this season was one that had a lot of good moments that both the teams will rue they didn’t capitalize on. Pep has been under a lot of scrutiny from the fans and the pundits who claim the team that is taking the field has been anything by a shadow of the team it was last year or the years before that. The Tiki-Taka play which has been long associated with the manager who has won it all has been absent from his team this season, along with one major thing they are missing dearly potent finishing. With their forwards and wingers missing the potency they usually show in front of the goal post they never scored the 2nd goal that probably would have closed out the game.

Raheem Sterling scores the opener for City. Source : Getty Images

The game started with the Saints playing positively in front of their home fans with an aggressive press. City did manage to get the ball a little more as the game passed the 10 min mark and then they started to run at the Southampton defense more frequently. Now Southampton played a tight compressed defensive line which left spaces open in the wider areas for the city players to exploit. And they did so exactly with Walker and Cancelo making frequent runs in the channel. Silva and Sterling were also playing in the wider areas to help them out and generally widen the playing field. For Southampton, their main attacks were from the right side, with Theo Walcott making frequent runs at the city backline. The deadlock was broken in probably a usual city way with their destructors in chief, Kevin De Bruyne and Raheen Sterling combining to get one in the back of the Southampton net, what was not so usual was the way the attack started. The first pass in the making of this goal was a longball from the keeper Ederson to Bernando Silva while he had Stones and Walker, both the more usual short passes free. This was because of the way Southampton was playing with them getting bodies forward for all their attacking moves, they left a little bit of a gap in their backline which was capitalized upon by Ederson. After that it was an inch perfect cutback form De Bruyne to Raheem Sterling, who put the ball in the back of the net with a good finish. But after conceding was probably when the Southampton attacks starting to flow, with the likes of Theo Walcott and Walker-Peters regularly causing trouble for Cancelo in the right side. Jannik Vestergaard played some good balls forward form the back to find them in the wider areas which were exploited by these two, the only problem, they could not find Danny Ings in better positions to shoot. In the 41st minute Southampton were dealt with another blow as Ings who had recently had a knee surgery pulled a muscle and had to be substituted. The second half was a tough one for both the teams with both creating chances and making inroads but failing to score. City brought on Riyad Mahrez who their top scorer was when the match started to gain a more comfortable lead but that did not have the effect which Pep was probably looking for. With both Bernando Silva and Riyad Mahrez failing to convert any of the chances, from the Southampton point of view their chances were in the same pattern, with Theo Walcott making runs at the City goal, and set pieces. Vestergaard won a couple of headers in the City box with the corners perfectly delivered from Ward-Prowse but failed to connect one that would go into the back of the net.

Overall, the game was good for both the sides, but frustrating for Southampton to not get a point out of it and for City who were not able to score as much as they created. De Bruyne was again the best man on the pitch for City, while Vestergaard and Walcott were by far the best for the home side. The match was entertaining in both the halves but there were more goals in it contrary to what the 1–0 score line suggests. City now move to the 6th place and Southampton retain their 4th spot, but with one game in hand City would definitely be looking to get better and better and convert more goals considering Liverpool, the league title defenders netted 7 times against their opposition earlier in the day.

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