Jonathan Liew was at the Amex Stadium to see Manchester City rout Brighton. Here’s how he saw the game unfold. (Warning: may contain the glorious opening sentence “On the horizon where beauty and sadism meet, Manchester City tore Brighton to ornate, sumptuous shreds”.)
Graham Potter: “I think that’s fair,” he says to Sky Sports, when it’s put to him that his team were - not to put too fine a point on it – hammered. “We were well beaten by the better team. First half, we we were sort of in it a little bit, at a stretch. Had a couple of opportunities but not that much. Manchester City were very good. They have players who can hurt you anywhere. We’re disappointed with how the second half went. It petered out a little bit, but at the same time we’ve had in four days, Manchester City and Liverpool. It’s a big ask but we have to dust ourselves down and focus on the next three matches. Congratulations to them, they were very good on the night and we had no answers for them.”
Raheem Sterling: “We were disappointed last weekend with the loss away to Southampton,” he tells Sky Sports. “We created chances but didn’t finish them and they were brilliant. It’s great to bounce back with another away win. I think the problem we’ve had this season is that, last season, we’d create a lot of chances and finish them but this season we haven’t had that slight bit of luck. But we’re growing and doing things right and that’s what we need to do, to keep creating chances and finishing them. We can’t complain.” Manchester City have scored 91 Premier League goals this season, I’m not sure that’s where the problem lies.
On scoring his 27th goal in all competitions this season. “The most important thing for me is to have these valuable goals that add to the team,” he says. “At the end of the day, we need to try to win the FA Cup final and win the Champions League, otherwise they don’t mean anything.”
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The bottom six have won six games between them since the restart - three of those have been against Norwich.... https://t.co/pUAsBFIUX1
— Nigel Adderley (@nadderley) July 11, 2020
Full time: Brighton 0-5 Manchester City
Peep! Peep! Peeeeep! The final whistle is blown and Manchester City emerge easy winners, due in no small part to a hat-trick from Raheem Sterling. He looks around to see who has the match ball, which has gone AWOL after Lewis Dunk booted it into the stand. It’s retrieved and passed to Raheem, who looks as pleased as punch as he marches off the field.
90+2 min: “F**K OFF! F**K OFF! F**KING JOKE!” roars somebody from the sideline, as Raheem Sterling is given a free-kick after being tripped. At last, some passion from Brighton. Too little too late?
90+1 min: Two minutes.
90 min: Into the final minute we go and if the match officials have an ounce of compassion for anyone involved in this match, they won’t add on a second of extra time.
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88 min: Tariq Lamptey switches on his afterburners, sprints down the inside right and sends in a cross. It’s cleared.
84 min: Riyad Mahrez fires wide at the far post when perhaps he should have done better. If Brighton were a racehorse, somebody would put a blanket over them and erect screens around them. This is quite the thrashing, with Manchester City now having scored 10 goals in their past two games.
GOAL! Brighton 0-5 Manchester City (Sterling 81)
Sterling lifts the bouncing ball over Dan Burn as he zeroes in on goal. He falls to the ground and the ball hits his head and goes in past Mat Ryan at the near post. When your luck’s in, it’s in.
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80 min: It’s Manchester City against 11 training cones at the moment. They’re making the pitch super-wide with ... ah, hang on.
77 min: David Silva picks out Riyad Mahrez with a glorious ball over the top. Mahrez takes the ball wide around Mat Ryan, runs into traffic and cuts back inside before shooting into the side netting.
74 min: Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Who needs pretend crowd noises when you can listen to assorted Manchester City players pass the ball around like this. The pick of the passes, incidentally, an inch perfect one on the fly from Ederson to a team-mate standing at the intersection of halfway line and touchline. Glorious.
73 min: Manchester City double-substitution: John Stones and Fernandinho on, Eric Garcia and Rodri off.
71 min: Riyad Mahrez controls a deflected Phil Foden shot as the ball drops out of the sky, only to see his own shot from the edge of the penalty area blocked.
70 min: Brighton substitution: Leandro Trossard off, Alireza Jahanbakhsh on.
69 min: Drinks. Simple Minds. Waterfront.
67 min: “No shame on Brighton for getting the runaround here,” says Alan Smith, on Sky co-comms. I would argue there is a small bit of shame involved. They’ve been pretty abysmal and it’s not as if Manchester City haven’t lost nine Premier League games already this season.
63 min: Manchester City triple substitution: Phil Foden, David Silva and Oleksandr Zinchenko on. Kevin De Bruyne, Benjamin Mendy and Gabriel Jesus off.
63 min: Neal Maupay skitters down the left wing and tries to pick out Dale Stephens, but his cross is cleared.
59 min: Brighton triple-substitution: Neal Maupay, Dale Stephens and Subbuteo’s Tariq Lamptey on. Davy Propper, Aaron Connolly and Martin Montoya off.
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GOAL! Brighton 0-4 Manchester City (Bernardo Silva 57)
A rick from Mat Ryan allows Bernardo Silva to hog the column inches in this report. The Brighton goalkeeper spills a low drive from the City midfielder. Gabriel Jesus is on him in a flash, keeping the ball alive. It squirts to the feet of Silva, who fires home from close range at the second time of asking.
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54 min: So, where were we ... yes, Bernardo Silva had the ball in the Manchester City left-back position and turned Aaron Mooy inside-out as he attempted to find a yard of space to hack the ball clear. Pressing him relentlessly, Mooy’s doggedness was reawarded with a full force blast of the ball into the small of his back, which clearly hurt. He couldn’t help but laugh as he asked Silva to cut him some slack.
GOAL! Brighton 0-3 Manchester City (Sterling 53)
It’s 3-0 to City, as Raheem Sterling converts a free header at the back post, getting on the end of a curling cross from Bernardo Silva.
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53 min: Aaron Mooy bursts out laughing and asks Bernardo Silva ... oh, hold on.
50 min: Free-kick for City, just outside the Brighton penalty area, well left of centre. Brighton form a wall, with Leandro Torssard kneeling behind it. Kevin De Bruyne gets the ball up and down over the wall, only to see his fine effort hammer the upright. A brilliant effort but it’s kept out by a lick of paint.
48 min: Ederson “lumps” the ball long into the path of Riyad Mahrez, sprinting towards the edge of the Brighton penalty area. It’s a ridiculously accurate 80 yard pass but Mahrez is flagged for offside.
46 min: City pick up where they left off, laying siege to the Brighton penalty area as their players ping the ball around effortlessly. A Benjamin Mendy cross from the left is cleared by Yves Bissouma.
Second half: Brighton 0-2 Manchester City
46 min: Play resumes after a very animated but reasonably jovial discussion between Pep Guardiola and referee Graham Scott as the teams made their way back on to the pitch. There are no changes in personnel on either side.
Half-time: Brighton 0-2 Manchester City
The players adjourn to the dressing rooms with Manchester city looking home and hosed already with their two-goal lead. Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus got the goals, a couple I suspect may be the first of several more to come.
45+1 min: Sporting a bleached blond barnet, Aaron Connolly gets in behind the City defence but is shoved off the ball by Kyle Walker before he can pull it back to a team-mate from the byline. It looked a penalty to me, but none is forthcoming. I’ll need to see it gain.
GOAL! Brighton 0-2 Manchester City (Jesus 44)
And the cones are 2-0 down. Gabriel Jesus helps the ball over the line from two yards out after Rodri had directed a header from a corner goalwards.
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43 min: “It’s been like a training game, there’s a huge gulf in class between the two sides,” says Alan Smith on co-comms for Sky Sports. He’s not wrong.
40 min: Free-kick for Brighton, just inside the City half. The ball’s lumped forward, where Adam Webster and Lewis Dunk get in each other’s way, contriving between them to head the ball well wide.
39 min: Leandro Trossard gets on the end of a whipped cross from the left, but flicks his header over the bar. Close, but no cigar.
37 min: For the second time in quick succession, Davy Propper loses the ball inside his own half, sending Gabriel Jesus galloping towards the Brighton penalty area. He plays the ball wide to Riyad Mahrez, who aims for the far corner with a low diagonal drive but sends his effort narrowly wide.
34 min: The reassuring and metronomic “thunk-thunk-thunk” of one meaty side-footed pass after another echoes around the Amex Stadium as assorted Manchester City players pass the ball amongst themselves, forcing their opponents to chase shadows. What seems like 10 minutes later, Gabriel Jesus takes a shot from inside the Brighton penalty area. His effort is deflected onto the bar by Lewis Dunk and goes out for a corner. Nothing comes of it.
32 min: Brighton give the ball away in their own half, Davy Propper the guilty party. Kevin De Bruyne tries to pick out Gabriel Jesus in the penalty area, but the hosts clear.
31 min:Brighton win a free-kick wide on the left. The ball’s swung into the penalty area towards Martin Montoya, who is beaten in the air by Raheem Sterling. No, really.
29 min: Corner for Manchester City. Kevin De Bruyne sends the ball towards the penalty spot, where Bernardo Silva drops to his knees and steers a header into the arms of Mat Ryan.
27 min: Brighton, of course, geographically speaking, is also on the Waterfront. Good, multi-layered work from whoever is in charge of their stadium tunesmithery.
25 min: Back to City’s goal. Gabriel Jesus headed a Riyad Mahrez cross from the right into the path of Sterling on the edge of the Brighton penalty area. Completely unmarked, he shifted the ball from one foot on to the other before shooting low, hard and with pin-point accuracy into the bottom corner. It was in the pipe.
23 min: Benjamin Mendy takes a shot from a tight angle, firing into the side-netting. It’s time for drinks, soundtracked by the Simple Minds single Waterfront. Ask your dads.
GOAL! Brighton 0-1 Manchester City (Sterling 21)
Raheem Sterling fires a low drive into the bottom right-hand corner from the edge of the penalty area. Manchester City take a well deserved lead.
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19 min: First half possession: Brighton 32%-68% Manchester City.
16 min: Teed up by Raheem Sterling with a pull-back from the byline, Benjamin Mendy has a shot towards goal deflected out for a corner off Davy Propper. From the corner, the ball drops beautifully for Eric Garcia a few yards out, but he fails to make contact. That’s a bad miss and the 19-year-old holds his head in his hands accordingly.
16 min: Brighton corner. Pascal Gross sends the ball towards the edge of the six-yard box, where Eric Garcia leaps highest to head clear for City.
15 min: A rare Brighton attack breaks down when, with the ball at his feet, Aaron Mooy advances down the right, looks up to survey his options and sees none. He passes the ball back into his own half.
12 min: Free-kick for City, just inside their own half for a high boot. Mendy sets off down the left wing again, playing the ball inside to Raheem Sterling. Play switches from one wing to the other and the ball’s played into the Brighton penalty area, where Yves Bissouma hacks clear.
10 min: Adam Webster makes a crucial interception in his own penalty before Bernardo puts the ball out for a corner. City are very much in the ascendency but Brighton are defending well.
9 min: Another cross from the overlapping Mendy, who links up with Sterling down the left. His delivery is cleared by Martin Montoya.
7 min: Lewis Dunk blocks a shot from Gabriel Jesus, who had received a lay-off from Kyle Walker. Corner for City, which gets flicked on at the near post. Dunk sticks out a leg to hack clear. Ominous signs for Brighton, who are under the cosh.
6 min: Benjamin Mendy swings a cross into the Brighton penalty area from the left flank and Garbiel Jesus, completely unmarked having given Lewis Dunk the slip, heads wide from distance. He beats the ground in frustration.
5 min: Manchester City play the ball around the back and up towards midfield, the ball fizzing from one player to the next. Riyad Mahrez cuts into the Brighton penalty area from the right but is dispossessed by Bernardo.
3 min: Martin Montoya curls a ball into the Manchester City penalty area from the right wing, trying to pick out Aaron Connolly at the near post. Eric Garcia heads the ball out for a corner. Nothing comes of it.
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2 min: Mat Ryan gets an early touch in the Brighton goal, wellying the ball down the pitch. Less than two minutes into the game, Brighton manager Graham Potter takes a notebook from his pocket and scribbles furiously. “Get milk,” it may well read.
Brighton v Manchester City is go!
1 min: City get the ball rolling at referee Graham Scott’s signal, after all involved take the knee.
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Not long now: The teams are out at the Amex Stadium, with the players wearing black armbands as a tribute to the late Jack Charlton. There’ll be a minute’s silence ahead of kick-off in honour of the great man.
Brighton’s players wear their usual home kit of blue and white stripes, blue shorts and white socks. City’s representatives wear black shirts, shorts and socks.
Elsewhere in the Premier League: Chelsea have had their collective backside handed to them by Sheffield United, going down 3-0 at Bramall Lane. David McGoldrick finally got his long overdue first and second goals of the season, either side of Oli McBurnie’s strike. “It means the world to me,” the Irish international tells Geoff Shreeves on Sky Sports. Sheffielod United are sixth in the table, in the box-seat to qualify for their first ever foray into Europe. Good luck to them.
Those teams: Pep Guardiola makes six changes, bringing in Raheem Sterling, Kyle Walker, Eric Garcia, Benjamin Mendy, Bernardo Silva and Aymeric Laporte. His opposite number, Graham Potter is also rotation happy, naming Bernardo, Yves Bissouma, Aarons Mooy and Connolly, and Martin Montoya in his starting line-up.
Brighton v Manchester City line-ups
Brighton: Ryan, Montoya, Dunk, Webster, Bernardo, Bissouma, Gross, Mooy, Propper, Trossard, Connolly.
Subs: Button, Lamptey, Duffy, Stephens, Maupay, Mac Allister, Jahanbaksh, Murray, Burn.
Manchester City: Ederson, Walker, Garcia, Laporte, Mendy, Rodri, De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Sterling, Jesus, Mahrez.
Subs: Carson, Stones, Zinchenko, David Silva, Fernandinho, Otamendi, Foden, Doyle, Palmer.
Referee: Graham Scott
Tonight’s match officials
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Referee: Graham Scott.
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Assistants: Eddie Smart and Derek Eaton.
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Fourth official: James Linington.
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VAR: Peter Bankes.
Jack Charlton (1935-2020): A World Cup winner with England and a much-loved – and he really was loved – national treasure in Ireland, Jack Charlton passed away peacefully at his home in Northumberland last night, surrounded by his family.
Tributes have been paid to him before matches the length and breadth of the United Kingdom today, while no shortage of glasses will be raised in his memory on both sides of the Irish sea tonight. Rest in peace, Big Jack.
Early team news
Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero remains sidelined with a knee injury but Pep Guardiola may rotate his squad once again following their emphatic win over Newcastle during the week. Kevin De Bruyne and Benjamin Mendy are both available for selection having recovered from minor knocks.
Long-term absentee Jose Izquierdo is unavailable for Brighton, while his fellow Colombian international, the midfielder Steven Alzate is struggling with a groin problem and may not feature. Alzate has been training but still needs to undergo a surgical procedure that was postponed after he tested positive for covid-19.
Premier League: Brighton v Manchester City
Two days before they discover the result of their appeal against a two-season ban from European competition, Manchester City could be forgiven for being preoccupied tonight as they take on Brighton at the Amex Stadium.
Second in the table, they take on a Brighton side whose safety is pretty much guaranteed, but who will want to avoid the kind of humiliation City heaped upon Newcastle during the week. Kick-off at the Amex Stadium is at 8pm (BST) but stay tuned in the meantime for team news and build-up.
