Manchester City win 5-4 at Fulham, Haaland on 100

The mission is accomplished: Manchester City won at Fulham and confirmed their second place in the table, two points behind leaders Arsenal who host Brentford tomorrow (Wednesday) (in the other advance matches on Tuesday: Newcastle-Tottenham 2-2 and Bournemouth-Everton 0-1). How the former tyrants of England completed this mission is something that Pep Guardiola must reflect on, because in the 5-4 final there are many games in one, including a new comeback suffered, this time from the 5-1 that an unfortunate deflection by Sander Berge on a shot by Jeremy Doku had sealed in the 54th minute, and a fool avoided only by a sensational save off the line by Josko Gvardiol in the 98th minute which counts as a goal. In short, City demonstrates with the second consecutive victory that it can continue to march like a great team, but also that it still has many defects, starting with a worrying fragility, which the other contenders for the Premier League do not have.

what works

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On the positive side there are obviously the 3 points, the second consecutive victory which also makes Gigio Donnarumma leave the pitch with a smile despite the 4 goals conceded. The best news for Guardiola is that Phil Foden has definitely found himself: he scored a brace for the second game in a row, this time striking between the first half (the 3-1 in the 44th minute, a remote-controlled ball behind Leno) and the beginning of the second half (the 4-1 with the lucky backheel assist from Erling Haaland after less than 180 seconds of the second half), he put his foot on all of City’s most dangerous actions of the first hour. He looks like the Foden of 2023-24, the one who led Guardiola’s team as Premier League MVP towards their fourth consecutive title. Haaland also works, having become the fastest ever to score 100 goals in the Premier League with the 1-0 goal (he reached it in his 111th appearance, Alan Shearer, who took away the record from Alan Shearer, had taken 124 games to reach triple figures): he was in abstinence from three outings, in addition to the record goal he also hit two posts, launched Tijani Reijnders for the momentary 2-0 and played for the team. Jeremy Doku also works great, elusive on the left for both Tete and Castagne, who tried to contain him. Pep is restructuring City with a 4-3-2-1 in which the team seemed increasingly comfortable, at least until Alex Iwobi and above all the former Milan player Samuel Chukwueze launched Fulham’s sensational comeback from the 57th minute.

what not

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And here Pep’s pain begins, because like on Saturday against Leeds, City went into crisis at the first difficulty. This time it wasn’t a change of formation, but the intensity and belief that Fulham put into it when Iwobi made it 5-2. From there the problems began: City conceded at least two goals for the fourth game in a row, and for the second they went haywire when less than irresistible opponents raised their level. The two goals with which Chukwueze, the first goals of his career in the English championship, blew up Craven Cottage increased the belief of Marco Silva’s team that they could recover and extinguished City’s certainties. So much so that if Gvardiol hadn’t intercepted Kevin’s goal-bound touch, the Premier League would have ended the second 5-5 draw in its history. The Croatian defender, however, in the 98th minute saved his team from a fool that would have been much worse than the one on Saturday against Fulham. In sport they say that winning cures every ailment, but City are discovering they have many. If he really wants to challenge his former number twos Mikel Arteta and Enzo Maresca for the Premier League, Guardiola must quickly understand why City is disbanding, what triggers in his team’s minds at the first sign of difficulty. Donnarumma’s leadership in recent weeks seemed to have restored security to the defense, but now not even the national team goalkeeper can do anything. City continues to win and the league table says they are Arsenal’s first pursuers. The level of the Gunners, however, still seems far away for Guardiola and his team.