Read Jamie Jackson’s report from the Etihad Stadium here:
Swansea City will be gutted. They were a matter of minutes away from picking up a valuable point in the battle for survival after a spirited performance in the second half, but Gabriel Jesus had other ideas. His second goal could be a turning point in Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City career. Hard questions would have been asked of the City manager if that had ended 1-1. Instead the story’s all about his new Brazilian forward, who has the look of something special about him. City move third thanks to Jesus’s double, while Swansea remain a point above the bottom three. Thanks for reading and emailing. Bye.
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Full-time: Manchester City 2-1 Swansea
A star is born!
90 min+5: City almost add insult to injury, only for Aguero to head over from Toure’s dink. But it’s not going to matter.
90 min+4: Fernando replaces Gabriel Jesus, the two-goal area. Paul Clement has the thousand yard stare on.
GOAL! Manchester City 2-1 Swansea City (Jesus, 90min+2)
Gabriel Jesus wins it for Manchester City! The Brazilian teenager scores his second and Swansea are heartbroken! The assist belongs to David Silva, of course. He dips inside from the right and curls a ball into the middle with his left foot. Jesus is onside and although his downward header is saved brilliantly by Fabianski, he can’t miss the rebound from a yard out!
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90 min+2: Jesus finds Aguero. He beats Mawson. He lines up the shot. It’s blocked.
90 min: There will be four minutes of added time.
89 min: There’s no storm of pressure from City. They aren’t attacking in waves. A winning goal would be a surprise.
88 min: Sane displays spectacular skills to dribble clear down the left. From his cutback, the ball squirts up and hits a Swansea player. On the arm? Mike Dean says no.
86 min: There’s no suggestion of a second City goal yet.
83 min: Borja Baston replaces Fernando Llorente for Swansea, while Manchester City have thrown on Sergio Aguero and told him to spare their blushes. Raheem Sterling is the man to make way.
82 min: City have paid for failing to press home their dominance in the first half. They still lack that killer instinct. That said, they might wonder if Sigurdsson’s goal should have been ruled out for offside. Nathan Dyer might have unsighted Caballero when Sigurdsson shot, which might explain the City goalkeeper’s slow reaction time.
GOAL! Manchester City 1-1 Swansea City (Sigurdsson, 81 min)
The brilliant and vital Gylfi Sigurdsson scores the equaliser that’s been in the air! Luciano Narsingh held off Gael Clichy and found him 25 yards from goal. Sigurdsson shifted the ball on to his left foot and then struck a low shot towards the bottom left corner. Caballero was unsighted and although it was close to him, he couldn’t keep it out! Swansea are level!
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81 min: The game remains finely balanced as we enter the final 10 minutes. That didn’t seem likely after the first 10. And sure enough...
78 min: Pablo Zabaleta replaces Kevin de Bruyne, who’s faded since half-time.
77 min: City are getting ready to bring on Pablo Zabaleta, which neatly summarises their edginess.
75 min: Nathan Dyer replaces Tom Carroll.
74 min: Stones covers well after Carroll finds Sigurdsson in the area. He boots it clear and finds Jesus, who falls after using his strength to turn Cork. The Swansea man picks up a booking.
72 min: A glorious little flick from Jesus completely fools Fernandez, who can do nothing to stop the ball rolling through his legs and to Silva, but Mawson steams across to block the Spaniard’s shot. Nothing comes from the corner.
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69 min: Renewed City pressure ends with Sterling drilling a low cross into the middle. Mawson turns it over for a corner. Kolarov heads wide from De Bruyne’s outswinging delivery.
67 min: Little is occurring. Football really is a game of two halves.
65 min: Swansea make their first change. Luciano Narsingh replaces Wayne Routledge.
64 min: Stones gives away possession with a poor pass near the halfway line, but he redeems himself with a fine tackle to halt Sigurdsson on the edge of City’s area.
62 min: Routledge tries to turn inside Kolarov, who concedes another corner on the right. Sigurdsson flings it in and Mawson pops up between Stones and Kolarov, only to glance wide of the far post.
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60 min: Swansea win another corner over on the left, Kolarov cheaply conceding it with a wonky header. Stones heads Sigurdsson’s delivery away. Moments later, Llorente’s booked for leading with his arm in an aerial challenge with Kolarov.
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57 min: Perhaps City could put Claudio Bravo on to calm things down in midfield.
56 min: City haven’t got going at all since half-time. Don’t be surprised if I’m writing GOAL! MANCHESTER CITY 1-1 SWANSEA soon.
54 min: This is scrappy.
51 min: De Bruyne finds Sane on the left. He gets his fizzing low cross wrong, but it almost turns out better than anyone could have anticipated when the ball hits the outside of the post. I’m not sure Fabianski would have had that covered if it was on target.
49 min: Sigurdsson’s corner is flicked on by Llorente at the near post and Fernandinho has to head clear from near his own goal-line. From the edge of the area, Jack Cork blazes the follow-up over. Swansea will take encouragement from this spell.
48 min: With everyone waiting for a cross, Gylfi Sigurdsson takes everyone by surprise by going for goal. Everyone, that is, but Willy Caballero. City’s underworked goalkeeper leaps to his right to tip the ball on to the woodwork and behind for a corner. What an effort from Sigurdsson!
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47 min: Swansea have made a positive start to the second half and a dynamic run from Olsson ends with Fernandinho bringing him down to the left of City’s area. Sigurdsson is standing over the ball.
46 min: Swansea get the second half underway. They’ll be aiming to put two or three consecutive passes together on a couple of occasions in the next 45 minutes or so.
Half-time: Manchester City 1-0 Swansea City
Amazingly, for all of their poise, Manchester City only have Gabriel Jesus’s early goal to show for their dominance at the end of a preposterously one-sided half. Somehow, in defiance of logic, Swansea are still in this game.
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44 min: Swansea’s bright spell fades away. Kolarov is given time and space to rake a pass from deep over Olsson to Sterling, who touches it past the onrushing Fabianski and sprawls to the floor. The City fans behind the goal howl for a penalty, but play continues and the ball ricochets around the Swansea area. Silva tries to force it in, but it’s hacked off the line. Eventually Mike Dean blows his whistle and books Sterling for diving. I think he has that wrong. Fabianski came steaming out, his studs looked up and Sterling appeared to fall while taking evasive action, which wouldn’t seem to fall into the category of simulation.
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42 min: This is Swansea’s best spell of the game: City haven’t mustered an attack for a few minutes and now De Bruyne’s been booked for a trip on Olsson on the left.
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40 min: “It’s now 3-2 Celtic,” reports out Scottish football correspondent, Simon McMahon. “Which would put them just the 27 points clear. Second placed Aberdeen would be closer to the bottom than the top, in terms of points anyway! Who says Scottish football isn’t competitive?”
39 min: Lukas Fabianski has made 20 passes, which is more than any other Swansea player.
37 min: The danger for City is that they’ll be made to pay for not making the most of their staggering dominance. They should be out of sight by now.
34 min: City’s intensity is growing. De Bruyne’s cross from the right just evades Gabriel Jesus, who was inches away from scoring his second. The De Bruyne sees another goalbound effort blocked. Swansea are hanging on impressively, but their resistance surely won’t last much longer.
33 min: It’s probably safe for City to get Claudio Bravo on. This is embarrassingly one-sided. “It’s time to start feeling sorry for Swansea, and in particular for Fernando Llorente, whose glory days were some time in the last century,” says Charles Antaki. ‘On the few occasions that the ball’s reached him, he’s showing the agility and skill of a person who ought quite reasonably be sitting in their slippers by a warm fire. That will come very soon, I expect.”
32 min: The corner eventually reaches Toure on the left. He outmuscles Olsson, but shoots too closely to Fabianski, who saves.
31 min: Swansea are breathing heavily as they try to keep up with City’s movement. De Bruyne scampers into the area from the right and shoots, but Fernandez deflects his effort behind for a corner.
29 min: Leroy Sane and Leroy Fer discuss how it’s funny that they both have the same name, then the former peels away from the latter, who’s gone to sleep. David Silva picks out Sane’s run, but Swansea escape when the German accidentally kicks the ball with his “wrong foot” and sends it behind for a goal-kick just as he was preparing to cross.
27 min: Yaya Toure misses a great chance to double City’s lead. Silva’s corner found him all alone eight yards from goal, but his body shape was awkward and he sidefooted well wide on the volley. At the risk of enraging the Expected Goals crowd, he should have scored.
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26 min: All that’s missing for City at the moment is a second goal and it nearly arrives when Sterling flashes a vicious cross towards the near post from the right. Fernandez just exerts enough pressure to deny Jesus and the ball trickles wide of the far post for another City corner.
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25 min: “I’m pretty sure that Swansea are also ‘City’,” says Stuart Jenkinson. That’s true, Stuart, but we’ll just have to hope fellow readers don’t confuse them with Swansea United.
23 min: City have had 82% of the possession so far.
22 min: Yaya Toure bends the free-kick towards the top right corner with his right foot, but Fabianski leaps to his right and magnificently tips it behind for a corner, which comes to nothing.
21 min: City carve Swansea open again with ridiculous ease and Naughton desperately brings Silva down 25 yards from goal. The Spaniar would have been through on goal.
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20 min: Leroy Fer tries to start a Swansea counter-attack, only for Yaya Toure to perform a reverse Coquelin and cynically bring him down.
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18 min: Manchester City are treating the ball with such care. It feels as though they could keep it in their possession until next week.
16 min: “Building on the theme of level playing fields and noticeable glee when a team loses, Celtic, unbeaten for about 5 years and 200 games in Scotland (or so it seems), are currently losing 2-1 to St. Johnstone,” says Simon McMahon.
Could Guardiola do it at Rangers?
15 min: SWANSEA ARE IN MANCHESTER CITY’S HALF.
12 min: This could turn very ugly very quickly. Now Raheem Sterling nutmegs Olsson on the right and hares off down the wing, but his cross is poor.
GOAL! Manchester City 1-0 Swansea City (Gabriel Jesus, 11 min)
Understatement of the weekend: this was coming. Swansea have been under severe pressure since the first whistle and it’s not taken long for them to crack. Gael Clichy finds Silva with a throw-in on the left. He has his back to goal, but he manages to turn and wriggle clear of Fernandez far too easily. He drills a low ball towards Sterling and when it deflects up off the winger, Gabriel Jesus shows off his poaching instincts and speed of thought to arrive on the scene and scissor a low volley past Fabianski.
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9 min: David Silva wins a corner for City on the left. Swansea scramble the corner away, but they’re struggling to get out of their third, let alone their half. Tom Carroll has an adventurous dribble, but he only gets as far as, er, his own D before being halted by four City players. Silva has a shot from the left, but it’s blocked. This is relentless from City.
8 min: Kolarov allows himself a sighter from long range. The ball fizzes well over the bar.
7 min: The electric Sane dribbles deliciously past Naughton and reaches the byline, only to find a Swansea defender with his cutback. Moments later, City press again. Alfie Mawson, the young Swansea centre-back, miscontrols and Gabriel Jesus threatens to nick the ball off him. Jesus tumbles, but Mike Dean sees nothing wrong with Mawson’s legal challenge.
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6 min: This is already attack versus defence. No prizes for guessing which team is playing which role.
4 min: Kolarov raps Llorente’s shins near the halfway line. The Spaniard felt that one and he’s down for a while, but he should be fine to continue.
2 min: This is a fast start from City and now Leroy Sane surges down the left and whips in a cross to the near post. The alert Gabriel Jesus finds space, but clips his first-time shot over the bar.
And we’re off! Manchester City get the game underway, kicking from left to right in the first half. They’re in light blue. Swansea are in white and they’re immediately on the back foot as City win the ball on the edge of the area. Silva zaps a pass through to Sterling, but his touch is heavy and the ball runs behind for a goal-kick.
The teams have arrived. The action will begin shortly. “Regarding your intro about Guardiola; while I appreciate that Pep’s record and history mean he deserves a chance and time to get things right before we all write him off, can we please drop this generalisation of all Pep-sceptics as Sun-reading luddites who don’t trust Jonny Foreigner and think any triumph outside the Premier League doesn’t count?” says Shaun Wilkinson. “Some people, and I consider myself among them, have nothing against him or foreign managers, but just think maybe he needs to prove himself on a slightly more level playing field than he has done so far in his managerial career before proclaiming him agenius of all time. It is possible to suspect he is maybe not all he is cracked up to be without wanting Harry Redknapp and 4-4-fahking-2 instead!”
There’s a chance that I was exaggerating, but there is a noticeable glee in some quarters whenever a Guardiola team loses.
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Can anyone work out Pep Guardiola’s formation here? The return of Fernandinho sees Bacary Sagna drop out, meaning there’s no obvious right-back in the side and only one centre-back, John Stones. I suppose that Leroy Sane could be playing at right wing-back. It could be anything, though. Maybe Sergio Aguero could come on to do a job there if City are struggling. Or maybe I’m thinking too hard and it’s Fernandinho.
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An email! “Just a quick word on keeping the faith etc,” says Andy Turner. “Of course I don’t speak for all blues, but I haven’t detected much angst amongst us. Nobody is panicking. When we click it is fabulous to watch. I was brought up on Ali Benarbia, Georgie, Georgie Kinkladze and people like Peter Barnes and Mikes Doyle and Summerbee. Michael Brown tap-dancing on Nicky Butt. A ‘blip’ down to sixth is laughable, we were in division one fifteen years ago. We count our blessings. When Keegan got us promoted to the prem, about 15mins into the first home game next season, somebody got up and shouted ‘Keegan Out’ and we all fell about laughing.”
When these teams met at the Liberty Stadium in September, when Francesco Guidolin was still Swansea’s manager, Sergio Aguero was the hero for Manchester City as they continued their perfect start to the season with a 3-1 win. It was City’s 10th consecutive win in all competitions and two goals for Aguero took him into double figures for the season. But today, despite scoring 18 goals this season, he’s on the bench, just as he was against West Ham on Wednesday. Gabriel Jesus, tenacious and brilliant, is the new star and he starts up front instead. When Aguero came on against West Ham, it was for a 17-minute cameo on the wing. You sense that his relationship with Pep Guardiola is only heading in one direction from here.
The teams
Manchester City: Caballero; Stones, Kolarov, Clichy; Fernandinho, Toure; De Bruyne, Silva; Sterling, Jesus, Sane. Subs: Bravo, Kompany, Zabaleta, Fernando, Aguero, Navas, Delph.
Swansea: Fabianski; Naughton, Mawson, Fernandez, Olsson; Fer, Cork, Carroll; Routledge, Llorente, Sigurdsson. Subs: Nordfeldt, Kingsley, Amat, Britton, Narsingh, Dyer, Borja.
Referee: Mike Dean.
Preamble
Hello. So here’s a theory. There’s a chance that Pep Guardiola knows how to manage a football team. I get it. Manchester City conceded four at Everton and Leicester. Claudio Bravo is the first goalkeeper in history whose backers defend him by saying that he’s good with his feet. He said ‘what is tackles’. He’s foreign. He had Leo Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta to make him look good at Barcelona. He sounds worryingly like an expert. An elitist, doing a job that Gary Rowett could be nailing if only someone would give him a chance. Four-four-fahkin-two, Pep. Four-four-fahkin-two. Now go and apologise to Joe Hart.
Now, Guardiola has got a few things wrong this season, like signing a goalkeeper who doesn’t make any saves, mistaking Pablo Zabaleta for Philipp Lahm and making Brian Kidd wear skinny jeans. For members of the Church of Pep, keeping the faith hasn’t always been easy in recent months. But they’ve bounced back well from that humiliation at Everton last month. They played Tottenham off the park at times, only to throw away a 2-0 lead in the end, and destroyed Crystal Palace last week. Admittedly Sunderland scored four goals against Palace yesterday, but anyone who saw City destroy West Ham on Wednesday will agree that this experiment is worth seeing through to the end, especially now that the addition of the exhilaratingly fearless Gabriel Jesus has given their attack extra snarl and menace.
But when it comes to inspiring unlikely revivals, Paul Clement could tell Guardiola a thing or two. Swansea City were sinking like a stone under Bob Bradley, but they will arrive at the Etihad Stadium with a rare spring in their step. Sacking the American has done wonders for their confidence. Although they’re still in peril and remain amongst the cluster of teams down the bottom, three wins in their last four Premier League matches have seen them rise to 17th place. A point above Hull City and two above Palace and Sunderland, Swansea’s players would probably give their Ronald Reagan autobiographies away for free in exchange for another victory today. Don’t write it off entirely - it is two weeks since they stunned Liverpool at Anfield, after all. But with City showing signs of understanding the finer details of Pepball, this could turn into a long afternoon for Swansea.
Kick-off: 1.30pm GMT.
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