City returned to winning ways with a convincing 4-1 win against Sunderland in yesterday’s Boxing Day fixtures. It was a positive result which contained negatives which somewhat took some of the gloss away from the score-line. I take a brief look at three things that we learnt from today’s fantastic performance against the Black Cats.
City’s home comforts continue
In what is probably one of the most obvious observations from today’s game, it is becoming an increasingly common theme for City to exhibit their most special performances on home turf. In fact, in the last four Premier League encounters, City have won both of their home games against Sunderland and Swansea; and lost their respective away games at the hands of Arsenal and Stoke.
City haven’t won a Premier League game on the road since September 12 when a late Kelechi Iheanacho goal made the difference against Crystal Palace all those months ago. Granted, City have made up for that by picking up away wins in other competitions, including impressive victories at Sevilla and Borussia Monchengladbach in the Champions League, but 5 league games away from home without a win isn’t good enough for a team of our calibre.
Today was a huge improvement as we blew Sunderland away with quick attacking play and pace on the flanks as the players turned on the style, but we simply cannot rely on home games to provide us with points.
The City of old
It was certainly a welcome sight seeing City play with such fluency and fluidity yesterday; reminding us of how we can play when we really turn on the style.
City ran out confident 4-1 winners against a lacklustre Sunderland side but the way that we attacked with such intent made us look like we’d score on every launch forward we made. Kevin de Bruyne in particular put on a fantastic show, offering assists as if they were going out of fashion; David Silva looked like he was settling back in; and Raheem Sterling showed another huge glimpse of how much of a prospect he is.
Let’s just hope that this time we can carry this performance into the next game, which coincidentally is against top of the table Leicester City, away from home…
Kompany’s fitness problems continue
Out of all the recent injury troubles that we’ve had, the absence of Vincent Kompany is perhaps the most damaging. There is a huge gap in our defence without the Belgian, with Eliaquim Mangala and Martin Demichelis both struggling for form, but with no other options to choose from with Jason Denayer away in Turkey; Manuel Pellegrini has had no choice but to opt for one of these two and sacrifice valuable solidity at the back.
Which is why the return of the captain to the bench was a fantastic sight for everyone, and when Kompany made his appearance in the 62nd minute, it was hoped that our back four would once again be stable like it once was at the start of the season.
Unfortunately for us, the Belgian limped off in what is a recurrence of that calf injury that had kept him out for all those weeks previous. The look in his eyes showed just how much devastation he felt and his strongly-worded Facebook post outlined his feelings well.
It seems that our captain just cannot stay fit at this time and it is certainly not a good time for the club, and for him. Get better soon, Vincent.
