Guardiola’s team is still far from top form, but collects 3 points thanks to goals from Savinho and Haaland in the first match of the day
While waiting for league leaders Liverpool, who are playing West Ham at 6.15pm, the Premier League begins the final first leg with City raising its head by moving on to Leicester.
Leicester-Manchester City 0-2
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It’s not the real Manchester City yet, but at least it’s winning again and in this moment of crisis that’s the only thing that matters. The champions in Leicester achieve success number 2 in the last 14 matches, defeating the Foxes in crisis like them (fourth defeat in a row with 12 goals conceded and just one scored) with a goal in each half but suffering throughout the second half, incapable as they are right now to look like their best version. Now, however, City are interested in winning, as that is secondary. And he is counting on his champions to regain their confidence: starting with Erling Haaland who scored in the 74th minute (assisted by Savinho, who had opened the scoring in the 21st minute for his first goal with City) for what was just his fourth goal in the last 14 Premier League matches. Guardiola made the right choices, starting Kevin De Bruyne from the start, lively without being brilliant, asking Rico Lewis to constantly join Mateo Kovacic in midfield and choosing Bernardo Silva in the middle to lend a hand even when the team defends. It worked because the result that City was waiting for arrived in Pep Guardiola’s 500th match as coach of the blue side of Manchester, but it certainly didn’t erase all the problems: City danced a lot in defence, especially at the start of the second half when Leicester he came close to equalizing several times (and hit the woodwork twice). And in attack, apart from the goals, he still struggled to create. The result remains, the 31 points in the standings, the first away victory since October 20th, the second (with the second clean sheet) in this streak now two months long in which the champions have fallen from Heaven to Hell, closing the group out of the top 4 and with 8 points in the last 10 matchdays (after 23 in the first 9). In the next few days Guardiola will try to make sure that it is the first step towards the recovery, perhaps with some help from that market where City plans to be active, and not the exception that confirms the rule of the last two months, namely that the champions I’m in crisis.