When the owners of Manchester City finally managed to persuade Pep Guardiola to oversee the next stage of their masterplan it is fair to say they probably did not expect to be approaching Christmas scuffling with a team of Watford’s limitations for their first league win at home in almost three months.
The revolution certainly has not taken off as people might have anticipated but City should feel better for this victory even if it was tempered by another terrible blow for the luckless Ilkay Gündogan. On the one hand, the goals from Pablo Zabaleta and David Silva ought to improve City’s confidence going into Sunday’s game against Arsenal. On the other, it was clear from Guardiola’s body language that he expects bad news when Gündogan goes for a scan on suspected knee-ligament damage. City’s manager could not guarantee the Germany international, facing his third serious injury in three years, would play again this season. “A long time,” was Guardiola’s prediction.
For Gündogan, that would be cruel luck and it was perplexing that City’s medical staff let him try to run off the injury when it was clear immediately from the way he raised his hand that an accidental collision with Nordin Amrabat had left him in distress, not least as it was the same knee he dislocated earlier this year. Gündogan lasted only a few more minutes before it became apparent he had to come off in a game that also saw Roberto Pereyra, the Watford player, suffer a potentially serious knee injury.
Pereyra will also require an x-ray to ascertain the seriousness of the problem after a disappointing night for Watford whose manager, Walter Mazzarri, was surely trying it on by claiming, more than once, they had “played a great game”. Claudio Bravo, City’s erratic goalkeeper, was not required to make a save until the 76th minute and when the opposition were operating with such a drastic lack of ambition it was not easy to be sure whether or not City should be too encouraged – or if they were simply lucky not to encounter a team who might have posed them more problems.
Guardiola talked afterwards about a satisfying evening’s work, ensuring only their fifth win in 16 matches, but it had been a subdued atmosphere before Zabaleta turned up the volume with his first goal for two years.
Until that point Watford had looked reasonably comfortable. Yet the decision to start with Troy Deeney on the bench, mindful that a booking would have meant his suspension for the trip to Sunderland on Saturday, summed up Watford’s conservatism and the visitors were increasingly being forced back as the game went past the half-hour mark.
Kevin De Bruyne was prominently involved, as he so often is, and when his left-footed cross eluded four team-mates inside the six-yard area Zabaleta was at the far post to drive his volley past Heurelho Gomes.
Guardiola had continued his policy of wholesale changes, reverting to an orthodox back four but finding no place for John Stones after his recent lapses, as well as leaving out four other players from the 4-2 defeat at Leicester City last Saturday. Guardiola has now made 27 personnel changes in the league when it comes to his team’s goalkeeping and defensive positions and 55 for the entire team. He is not the only manager who likes to switch things around but it might help to explain why his team are still finding themselves under their rapidly evolving tactics.
Not that it was entirely easy to understand Mazzarri’s thinking, either, and perhaps if Watford had dared show a touch more adventure they might have found out why Guardiola’s team had kept only two clean sheets in their previous 15 league fixtures.
For long spells it felt as though no one had bothered to inform the visitors that Bravo could be a danger to his own team. Nicolás Otamendi and Aleksandar Kolarov were playing in the centre of City’s defence and, again, it was perplexing why their opponents did not do more to find out why these two have a reputation for being accident-prone. Jerome Sinclair, a summer recruit from Wigan Athletic, was given his first start in attack but he and Odion Ighalo were only on the fringes of a flat and prosaic team performance.
Raheem Sterling, to give him his due, tried to enliven the night from City’s perspective and there were plenty of touches from De Bruyne and Silva to admire. Yaya Touré helped everything to tick over and Nolito, deputising for the suspended Sergio Agüero, produced one of the game’s better moments with a lovely turn away from Sebastian Prödl.
Overall, though, it was a drab match. Étienne Capoue at least had a go at testing Bravo with a shot into the goalkeeper’s midriff before Ighalo volleyed over Amrabat’s right-wing delivery, Watford’s best chance to change the complexion of the night.
That miss was costly as Silva stroked in Sterling’s pass following a three-on-two breakaway but Guardiola, reflecting on Gündogan’s misfortune, could not disguise some blurred emotions. “This is the worst news,” he said.
