It was a scruffy performance at times, with the clear sense that something is still not right. Yet, for Manchester City, any win will do at the moment. This was only their fifth in a dozen matches since the turn of the year and it was unusual to see a team of their gifts make such hard work of it against a side propping up the rest of the Premier League.
Manuel Pellegrini’s side had to withstand some anxious moments before the substitute James Milner soothed any lingering nerves with his 88th-minute goal and it could conceivably have been a more chastening experience but for the fact this was another night for students of refereeing demonology to flick through their little black books.
David Silva had opened the scoring in first-half stoppage time and Leicester’s goalkeeper, Mark Schwarzer, was kept busy enough to demonstrate why he is still playing at this level at the age of 42. Yet that tells only part of the story on a night when Vincent Kompany was demoted because of his deterioration in form, Wilfried Bony had an undistinguished first start for his new club and Leicester had justifiable complaints they had been on the wrong end of some crucial refereeing errors.
Nigel Pearson finished the night demanding video technology and the Leicester manager needed all his restraint not to talk himself into trouble because of the decisions from the referee, Robert Madley, that went against his team.
Pearson thought there were three different occasions when Leicester should have been awarded penalties and that, perhaps, was doing a disservice to Joe Hart after taking the ball a split second before connecting with Andrej Kramaric for the second of them.
The two incidents sandwiching that moment, though, were more obvious injustices. Pearson was certainly entitled to be aggrieved about Bony taking down Jeff Schlupp midway through the first half and there was another let-off for the home side five minutes after the interval when Fernando fouled Kramaric and the free-kick was awarded just outside the penalty area. The replays confirmed Kramaric had been marginally inside and Pearson was simmering with anger.
“Fifa have decided, in their wisdom, to block it [video technology] and that probably says something about Fifa,” he said.
Leicester will have to wonder whether the occasion might have panned out very differently had the correct decisions been made. This was certainly a good time potentially to face the champions, who were at least a couple of notches below their best and grateful, at 1-0, that Riyad Mahrez’s 74th-minute shot came back off the upright.
Kompany was watching from the back row of the dugout, hunched up in his overcoat, while Samir Nasri and Fernandinho did not even get on the bench and Pablo Zabaleta was also among the substitutes. Pellegrini will always defend his team but his selection here confirmed how alarmed he has been by their carelessness since the turn of the year. The home side’s shortcomings early on were epitomised when Paul Konchesky, Leicester’s nomadic left-back, slipped the ball through Jesús Navas’s legs for a perfectly executed nutmeg. The crowd was flat and, though Bony worked hard to enliven the occasion, his finishing was poor. The first half was meandering to its close before Silva spared his team-mates the possibility of heading to the tunnel amid a soundtrack of discontent.
Yaya Touré started the move with one of his driving runs through the centre. Silva knocked the ball out to Aleksandar Kolarov on the left and then continued his forward movement into the penalty area, anticipating where the cross would come. Bony went for it first but was under pressure from Robert Huth and when the ball squirted out to Silva, he scored at the second attempt after his first effort had come back off Wes Morgan.
Bony’s erratic finishing throughout the night could probably be put down to anxiety. Schwarzer saved one effort in the first half but another flew over the bar and Bony missed the target again when Silva picked him out in the penalty area early in the second half. Bony, to give him his due, looked keen to justify his selection but the £25m recruit from Swansea was replaced by Milner after 72 minutes and will not remember the occasion with great fondness.
Sergio Agüero was strangely subdued, too, and Navas’s cross for Milner’s goal only partially disguises the way he tends to flit in and out of matches. Eliaquim Mangala, taking over from Kompany alongside Martín Demichelis, had one of his better games. Yet it was strange to see the champions looking so dishevelled against such moderate opponents.
Touré tried a curler that was heading for the top corner until Schwarzer turned it away and Silva, as always, tried to lift his team, always wanting the ball and having that rare knack just about every time of doing the right thing with it.
Milner turned in Navas’s centre and the home side could relax but they will know there has to be an improvement if they are to stand any chance of making up the gap to Chelsea.
